Extracting Screws and Nails

My shop is very limited (actually it’s almost non-existent so far), and although eventually I hope to learn how to surface lumber with handplanes, I am not yet up to the task, especially on a project this large.  So my plan is to take the boards over to Frank’s shop and run them through his nice jointer and planer.

Before I do that though, I want to do some prep work.  For one thing, I need to check for and pull out any metal, I’d sure hate to nick one of his blades.  Before starting that, I decided to sand some of the boards to see what the wood will look like.

Sanding Some Faces

2009.02.01

Today I started sanding the faces of some of the boards I bought from the Rebuilding Center.  I’ve had a Bosch 1274DVS belt sander for almost ten years, but it hasn’t seen much use in that time; today it saw plenty.  I bought some 80-grit and 50-grit belts and soon determined that 50-grit was the way to go.

This was my first glimpse of what these boards will look like after they are cleaned up.  So far so good.

Bosch actually has the audacity to call this a “dustless” belt sander.  The little cloth dust bag is a joke, especially since most of the dust just comes flying out from under the machine anyway.  I tried hooking it up to my dust collector but the dust port is so small, and the adaptor and hose are so heavy, they wouldn’t stay attached.  This is the dust pile after I swept up, but really the entire basement is now covered in a fine layer of sawdust.

My Own Worst Enemy

This is why you shouldn’t wear loose clothing while operating power tools…

Screw and Nail Extraction

2009.02.28

Well I knew I’d have to pull some screws and nails out of these boards.  I hadn’t counted on some of them being buried quite so stubbornly though.  There’s really no tidy way to do a job like this.  I used a combination of tools, including needlenose pliers, a little metal pick, a cheap chisel that I’m not worried about messing up, and a good pair of nail pullers.  Another recommended tool is a metal detector.  I bought one, but I need to buy a 9-volt battery for it.

2009.03.07

I now have a battery in the metal detector, which works quite well.  Most of the boards are clean or only have one piece of metal to deal with.  Some are quite involved, however.  The worst things to pull out are screws which were cut off with a reciprocating saw and then have sunk down below the surface.  I have to chisel out a rough mortise large enough to get the nail pullers down in deep enough to grab the screw.  Then I have to back the screw out with the nail pullers.

2009.03.22

More nails and screws…