How do I clean reclaimed wood from construction?

Question

I'm building a house (brick, cement and concrete) and I have a big pile of wood used for beam and pillar molds.

How can I properly clean cement off wood? I think it should be very damaging to blades in general (planer, table saw, etc), and sanding it out wouldn't be very effective.

Its too late now, oil (motor oil) wood before using as concrete form. — HerrBag, Jun 07 '13 at 20:52
Do you need the wood at a standard size? If not, resawing with a cheap blade (after knocking big pieces off, ala longneck) — HerrBag, Jun 07 '13 at 21:02
Not really, is just wood that I want to re-use. In this case the problem is that I don't have a bandsaw. They don't have chunks of cement attached, is more like cement that was in contact, smeared or dripped. — Luiz Borges, Jun 07 '13 at 22:30
@herrbag but then you're left with oil-soaked wood. Sounds worse that concrete. ;) — DA01, Jun 08 '13 at 02:05
@DA01 you pretty much commit the lumber for form use. It would burn nicely. — HerrBag, Jun 08 '13 at 18:19

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 08 '13 at 00:43

You could try X'Crete which is advertized as suited to removing concrete from forms. It dissolves the concrete into a slush you can rinse away. There's probably other similar products.

Or a more hard-core approach would be to use Muriatic Acid; apparently that's what masons use to clean their stuff. Downside being it's dangerous.

A more tool-oriented approach would be a belt sander with a low grit paper. Belt sander don't care.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 07 '13 at 20:49

0

Knock it off with a chisel and a hammer, then plane it.

answered Jun 07 '13 at 20:49

longneck

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not with my planer – HerrBag Jun 07 '13 at 20:49
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Edit: Knock it off with a chisel and hammer, then plane it using the plane you borrowed from that neighbor you don't like. – DA01 Jun 08 '13 at 21:12

How do I clean reclaimed wood from construction?

2 Answers2