Oops, forgot the drawinghttp://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1717364730.jpg

I'm scraping the corners and edges that were sanded against the grain of an old wooden floor.

Lots of good info, thanks. I've been using a file on the scrapers.
No worries! You're doing me the favor, I can wait as long as it takes. You're a busy guy.
I had 2 bench grinders and sold them both when we downsized from a house to an apt thinking "I'll just get another when we have space again". Who knew that the days of getting great stuff super cheap were coming to an end. I know there are still amazing deals out there, but they aren't as plentiful as they once were. The file is working OK for now.

thx

The file sucks on those scrapers you shown, but I only use a file to sharpen my card scrapers then a burnisher to create the cutting edge. The grinder doesn't work there.

The grinder is similar to a serrated knife. Rough cutting edges that requires sharpening once dulled but it is well worth it for speedy work in both removing materials and especially sharpening.

I have a whole drawer full of scrapers. If they made it, I probably have it. The 4 edge one is not a great tool but one that you need. And they are cheap enough that having one is not a waste of money.

To sharpen I hold it opposite what Jeff shows and have the grinding wheel turning towards the handle. This creates a nasty burr that you would not use on anything but a rough house project like a peeling window sill. I find that the serrated edge is just a little nastier but I never use it.

I do use a file on those to keep from having to walk to the bench grinder. I used to take a bench grinder with me when I was painting in the '70's. 4 and 5' angle grinders were just hitting the market and when I got one that was all I needed to dress the the scraper.

You can experiment with angles until you find one that works best for you at whatever angle of attack you use. One side of the square blade has ears for corners and I use that side up before the others.

Carbide scrapers are worth the money but not unless you buy a green carbide wheel. You can make those wicked sharp and they do lose the edge just like the steel ones, but they will still work well a lot longer than the steel before dulling out.

Yeah, a file is a must on a card scraper to keep the edge dead straight. Lots of YT's one how to create a nice burr.

I like grinding wheels rated for using the side. I will gently use a side of a wheel even though they say to not do that. If all you are doing is lightly touching a scraper blade, you're safe enough. But you didn't hear that from me. Get the side rated one and have confidence.

Or use your angle grinder but not on the card scraper.

Another use for cards is to make profile scrapers for moldings. 300 years ago they made moldings by hand, sometimes with a plane and sometimes with a free blade.

Watch scratch shaping:

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Works well with hardwoods and tends to tear at softwoods, but it can be done. I have used heat and a custom made scratch tool to remove paint and varnish from detailed work as well as create new.

I saw one of these old stanleys for sale the other day and almost bought it just because I think the old tools are cool.

https://images.finewoodworking.com/a...Unknown-2.jpeg

Get one of those REd Devil ones. They are simple, works very well and cheap replacement blades are cheap and easy to get. Trick to any scrapers is to not allow them to flex causing vibration, chatter, or skip, whatever you like to call it, making the cut rough. If you lack a bench grinder, use a belt sander with 80 grit belt. One pass or just rough the belt for 53 seconds will make you want to toss all your files into the yard as far as you can. I have done them both way, milt's way is a bit too rough but it will gouge out any paint especially from an inside corner.

If you don't have a belt sander, get an 80 grit sandpaper. glue it to a board or 4' belt (alum. oxide), wrap that around a block or lumber. sharpen the blade on there. Don't sweat the angle too much but after a couple time, you will find that angle and get the hang of sharping it. Drag that blade along the belt. it will get it nice, flat and sharp or run that belt over the edge of the scraper's blade upside down so you can see what you are cutting into. Works wonders.

Don't drop those carbide scrapers, they will shatter. I bought a couple from Festool for scraping edgebanging. Works damn great and stays sharp for a long time. One of my guy dropped it on the concrete floor. Poof, 90 bucks gone. We use the side of the grinders all the time. I normally don't tell people to do it but if they do, its usually something small.

Now that I reread milt's post, what exactly are you trying to do with this tool? Can you just take a heat gun to it and soften the paint and scrape them out in the corner like milt mentioned? How many corners or is it the stairs where the riser meets the thread?

I just watched a bit of that video you posted, Milt. Screw that man. This is 2024. I have a shaper that has not been fired up in a long time and thinking selling it because we no longer use it. 1 1/4" spindle. We made a few doors and windows with it over the years. Just like those who make custom plaster molding. I am done with those type of work.

This level was either my Father's or my Great Grandfather's, the tool box is one my Great Grandfather built, I'm soaking the hinges so I can open it without damaging it.
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This is the floor in the corner of a room. I've got to get the corner (4"x5") clean and smooth, and get the sanding marks out of the 4" where they go against the grain before we can stain and finish the floors.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1717455626.JPG

Wow, very cool! The level is in amazing shape and still has a partial decal! I think the "sweetheart" era is supposed to be 1919-1933, so that level is ~90-105 years old, but looks like it could be a couple/few years old. And that's one of the adjustable levels. I am going to get one of those some day. Very cool, thx for sharing.

I've got some boxes that my grandfather made for tools too, but they aren't nearly as old. I do have his old Stanley 750 chisels which I cherish.

Looks like you didn't use an edger? Do you have an orbital sander? A Scraper won't level out your drum sander divots. Get a power sander to do that then a pull scraper will work for the existing finish in the very corner

Looks like you deleted the pic?

I got a quote for a custom router bit from Daily Saw on Firestone Blvd. up your way. It was basically a doll house molding, think picture hang molding 5/8ths wide. $125 eight years ago. All I needed was 10 feet and no one had this molding. Plus it was for an 18th Century vargueno (or bargueno in Spain) in ebony.

Scratch stock worked great.

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Ebony, I'll bet that took a few passes with the scratch block 😃

Oh man, that's hard work. For Ebony, I spring for the router bit instead to save my tired fingers.

I use to drop blades off at Daily saw but they are too far for me and a real pain to get to with traffic. But these shops what will made custom knifes are slowing going away. I has LRH (not around anymore) made us a couple pieces of shaper knifes. That was not exactly cheap.

5" random orbital will take care most of that corner. Scrape out the rest, it only needs a little more to go. If not, get one of those cheap Ryobi triangular sanders to take care of the corner. It wouldn't get your floor completely flat so you may have to fudge it a bit but that is such tiny corner that it should be noticeable.

This one will blow your mind, well worth the watch - puzzle boxes

https://youtu.be/_NreYBwzRQk?feature=shared

^ fantastic puzzle designs. I don't like how he placed his fingers directly over the router bit with those small pieces of wood.

I've got a Ryobi random orbital that takes 1/4 sheets of sand paper as well as one of the Ryobi multi-tools that's got a little triangular sanding attachment. Our floor isn't completely flat anyway. The upstairs floor is like a calm day at the beach, plenty of waves. I've got to think that would take a ton of battery to get it all done, but worth a shot.

We don't try to drum sand it in one pass. Our first passes with heavy paper are at alternating 45° angles to the room. Followed by passes straight with the grain using finer grits. We sand floors perfectly flat (and faster) that way. You'll be wasting paper and time trying to sand your waves out with an orbital or belt sander.

Right. When I say my floor is not flat, what I mean is that there's no amount of sanding that would get it flat. Downstairs is flat, but upstairs was never meant to be rooms. It was originally attic space. About 35 years ago, someone built rooms. The floors up there are way, WAY out of flat. In one spot, I can put a 4' level down, hold one end on the floor, and the other end is hovering over the floor by more than an inch. In another spot that's probably closer to 5/8". I got the floors fairly flat-ish.

THe first time that we sanded the floor, I rented a drum sander from HD and progressed from 36 --> 120 grit. Then I rented a 7" edge sander and went from 60 or 80 --> 120.

Then because my wife was in a hurry, she stained the floor one day while I was working. The next day, she was super, super unhappy with it (it was pretty bad). So I've now sanded the floors a second time using a drum sander, but this time I skipped the edge sander and used my 4x24 belt sander. Where you see what looks like marks from the drum sander, it's actually from the front edge of the thin pad (1/8") in the center of the belt sander (not from the front roller).

I'm sure that you could/would have done a much better job. I think this is going to turn out OK (certainly rustic, but this place is pretty rustic) once we are done. I'm not going to let the wife do the staining again. I might let her help. I'm sure she could do this, but I don't want to have to sand a third time.

Holy CARP!

When I was a kid living in Japan, I got a couple of puzzle boxes, but wow, nothing like what he makes.

THey are pricey, but wow, dare I say, worth it if you have the spare dough to spend on something that marvelous.
https://www.kagensound.com/page5.html

These aren't mine, but are VERY similar

https://puzzleboxworld.com/cdn/shop/...g?v=1564355147

Actually, this one appears to be EXACTLY like one of mine.
https://puzzleboxworld.com/cdn/shop/...g?v=1629922609

https://puzzleboxworld.com/cdn/shop/...g?v=1629922614

https://puzzleboxworld.com/cdn/shop/...g?v=1629922618

https://puzzleboxworld.com/cdn/shop/...g?v=1629922622

Ahh, you're talking about your floors being out of level as oppose to not being flat. A floor can be re-leveled but usually involves replacement plus cutting and shimming joists using a laser. Can be pretty costly. Flat is doable, out of level is usually tolerated after the customer gets an estimate

I think to level our upstairs, you'd practically have to take the top of the house off, build a new second story floor, and then put the top back on. The floors are pretty flat except in some places towards the edge or in the corners.

While we're on the subject, if we're putting down 2 or 3 layers of water based satin poly, what would you recommend doing in between coats. I'm concerned that trying to do any screening or sanding could cut through previous coats and stain which would be a disaster.

Do you have a round sander of some type? If not, load up some 60 grit on the 1/4 sheet sander and get in that corner. A round or random orbital sander will sand out that paint much quicker. Finish it with 100-150 grit paper. Use that triangle sanding attachment to get into that corner. It should take you more more 10 -15 min to get that cleaned up, ready to stain. Use 3M tri-mite paper. They work pretty well.

Ha ha I'd leave the elevation alone. I'd consider it part of the character of your cool old house. IMO the further you distress the floor, the better. Don't worry, no matter what you do it's going to be awesome in the end.

How bad are the dips on the edges? It may not be as hard as you think but let find out why is it dipping. Tired or not enough foundation? If the first floor is dead flat, they never are, and I don't expect it to be on an old house, what is the cause of the our of lever second floor? maybe poor workmanship? Maybe the joists need to be shimmed where the dips are. I am not there and can't really see the house. It should not be a big deal, but the sub floor has to come out or access it from the bottom that's if the first floor is good. How many inches is it sagging? Leave it.

Unnecessary and undesirable to abrade between final coats. Dust free please! Make sure the windows and doors are shut tight. Put no entry blue tape at eye level across the doors. I do two coats only of final coating. 2 is plenty, any more can result in a finish that's too soft and dents easily.

Yep.
It's not "dips on the edges". I think the home was built by the original inhabitant in 1920 or 1924. The downstairs is fairly level/flat all things considered (you don't notice or feel any big changes, and we had the home leveled when we moved in. Of course, if we get a lot of rain, or have a long dry period, the house moves a lot. I think you'd need a bunch of foundation equipment to really figure out any issues downstairs. But upstairs is crazy. You can feel dips and rises as you walk across the floor. I think this is an approximation of what's going on upstairs.

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Great news all around. Glad to hear about not having to abraid! And the 2 coat vs 3 coat thing is also great. The poly can says "3 coats". We had 2 rooms done downstairs by pros while our kitchen was being remodeled. They'd originally said that they were going to do 3 coats, but ended up only doing 2.

After a bit of a hiatus, I'm back doing the live edge, and river tables.. Recently I started an Etsy account to see if I can monetize this.. everything I've made to date has been gifted to the girlfriend and relatives.. My brother just asked me to do a bar top in his den.. that will be done for just material costs..

I dragged a big ass piece of elm outside to trim reshape, and dress the edges

$800 worth of elm..

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General idea for the table

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1717623800.jpg

Dressed up the edges

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This one is going to take a lot of resin and pigment probably north of $1500, depending which resin I use the cost is $130/200 per gallon

Wow!

That diagram makes perfect sense to me having worked primarily on old and historic homes. Especially the porch. I've leveled several including my own. Old framing schedules used lighter lumber.

Table will be roughly 44X72... I think It will make an interesting dining room table

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Yeah, nothing surprising about it. The porch is angled away from the house as it should be. I don't remember the details about the supports RE: house --> porch (whether they are all one or added on or what. But it wouldn't surprise me if at some point the house was leveled and the porch intentionally allowed to droop (water run-off) or just got that way over time with less attention paid to the porch.

The left room is ~9.5' wide, then ~7' hall, then ~11' room and ~6' porch.

Most of the house studs that I've seen (walls and ceilings) are on roughly 24" centers.

That's going to be cool table. $800. for the slab? Yikes.
I made a similar resin table years ago and poured over a 12v LED light string. It turned out pretty cool but a little '70s cheesy.

So it's going to be a small table. :D

Big tables often have aprons and occasionally stretchers. How are you going to design the support structure and how do you attach the top and base?

That will look very cool. Are you going to put some more wood “islands” in the voids or will it be all epoxy?