sandblasting wooden beams

[Chauteix]

Hi,

We want to clean our wooden beams by sandblasting them before treating them with anti woodworm. We are not quite sure if sand blasting a good option, we are afraid that it is too strong and will destroy the beams rather than clean them, it is pine wood.

Anybody any expierence or advice for us??

Thanks!!!

[Weedon]

[quote]Hi,We want to clean our wooden beams by sandblasting them before treating them with anti woodworm. We are not quite sure if sand blasting a good option, we are afraid that it is too strong and will de...[/quote]

I'd be surprised if it is pine but the process for cleaning them is the same whatever it is. Sandblasting wouldn't destroy them because you would adjust your technique to suit.

In my opinion sandblasting is not the best way to do it but I know others have reccomended that it is.  You use a hell of a lot of grit or whatever else you use and is quite expensive if you hire the equipment because of the amount of time you want  to use it.  If you buy the equipment you need to buy a big enough compressor to keep up with the demand of air.

I used a small angle grinder with a paper grit disc on it, the sort that you use on car filler.  You need to get a really good breathing mask because the dust is (as the yanks say) awesome.

If you find it the same as me, once you have finished, it might almost be worth paying somebody to do it for you.

Best of luck

Weedon(53)

[Penny29]

I don't know if this will help..............

During renovation we uncovered two beamed ceilings. The first was unpainted but dirty (oak) & these came up beautifully clean with household scrubbing brushes, lots of elbow grease and a diluted solution of something we bought in boxes from the Brico's which is manufactured specifically for cleaning beams (St Marc?).

In the second rooms the beams were also old and dirty (chestnut) but, unfortunately, covered with thick, thick, gloss paint. We hired a sandblaster and had a very experienced man into do the job but nothing would shift the paint, in the end he felt the beams would disintegrate before the paint came off so we gave up and have (reluctantly) decided that the ceiling will have to be sanded and painted.

The sandblasting was wickedly messy - despite doors being sealed the grit, dust and debris wafted into every room in the house - a job we hope never has to be carried out again.

 

[Dog]

I read and tried to post a reply at about 1 o'clock today but I got a timed out response and could not reconnect to LF.

Today we hired a ginormous compressor and a sand blaster (strange you use quartz crystal in it) any way at €65 euros a day for the equipments seemed OK. By one o'clock we had worked out how to use the machine and clear blockages and we blasted one beam and used 3 sacks of crystals at €5.40 each and we'd only bought 5 that morning not knowing how far they'd go. So decided to hit the web as we have more than 30 beams to clean up. Everything I read said DO NOT USE SAND BLASTING on old beams it can leave them looking like drift wood etc etc, Our first beam looked slightly less dark and dusty but not a great difference and at this rate it was going to be expensive.

Trouble was whilst saying DO NOT DO IT they never gave an alternative to cleaning the beams up and getting back through the wormy wood to some good clean wood. So we bit the bullet and nipped back and bought 15 sacks - this was better the price dropped to €4 a bag! Got back set onto the second beam and it went well and the next 3 and we only used 2 bags of crystal.

I am reasonable pleased with the cleaned up beams but on the more wormy ones it has left a myriad of holes, channels and fissures. My question is how can we neaten these up - I reckon an adze or sanding/grinding - ideas please.

When we have finished with the shot blaster we keep the compressor and get a road drill to remove all the downstairs concrete floors that don't have a damp proof membrane are not flat and if screeded would make our already low doors fit only for limbo dancers and sausage dogs.

[Perlats]

The only solution we found for cleaning up heavily soot blackened beams (with irregular wormy bits too) was to use an electric plane. This worked well but even with a dust bag fitted to the plane was very dusty so wear a good mask.

[Peter72]

We tried wet sandblasting on a beam that had been removed which brought it up quite nicely, this was done outside,  however when we tried the same on other beams in situ it made a terrible mess, the sand would not pick up from the floor to the beam height and on the main beam, over 50x50cm, the paint absolutely refused to come off. Tried various decapant but no joy so it looks like back to paint. We do not intend using dry grit blasting due to the mess and dust, never seen it done in a domestic situation but several times in an industrial one and a bag of grit is about enought to cover the county in dust.

For beams that are only "wormy" with little rotted bits we have used  nylon rotary brushes on an electric drill which was a bit dusty but very effective before oiling.

 

Regards

Peter

[Chauteix]

Thanks for your answers!!

We decided not to go ahead with the sand blasting. The beams look good, no paint and no sud, the biggest problem is the woodworm and the fact that the roof is very high!!

We will start brushing (again) with wire brushes and get some nylon drill bits, then treat the wood.

Hopefully this will work and be enough.

Dirty job but it has to be done!!