Bitchumen on Wooden Floor

[franban]

Hello folks,

I was wondering if you might be able to advise me on the best way of making a useable floor surface out of it.

It is an industrial grade wooden floor, which has been covered with chip for many moons. After uncovering it, we realised it has quite a lot of bitchumen spread all over it... Is it salvageable? Ive been reading through forum posts and people seem to be removing bitchumen okay from parquet floors, would this technique work for me? Scraping, planing and filing down? and then a belt sander all over to get it ready for varnishing?

Im not after a polished, swanky or professional look, just something that could be workable for the time being, and looking a bit better than what is there at the moment!!

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!! Thankyou!

[welsh brickie]

yes you can remove it use a blunt wood chisel to remove the buitumin,a sharp chisel will take chips out of the floor.
Then once removed use an industrial belt fed floor sander to remove the layer of varnish.Then a rotary sander with a finer grade sandpaper to clean it up.
then paint the floor with a stain and or varnish.

[franban]

Thanks welsh brickie, I will begin my attempts next week and see what comes of it. I will keep ya posted!! Thanks again!