Hi. I just bought 600 sq feet of 50 year old 3/4" x 2 1/4" solid oak T&G removed from a local museum. The overall condition is pretty decent and the price was too good to pass up. It had previously been installed by the glue-down method. It is going to be installed into my 44 year old slab-on-grade house, also in Phoenix. For various reason it appears that glue-down is my only option. For background, I have installed flooring of many different types, but never solid hardwood directly on a slab. From everything I've read on this site, I've chosen to tackle one of the harder jobs.

On the plus side, the flooring is dry and stable and it is going on a nice level slab that is dry and stable, so no major issues there except removing adhesive from old linoleum that was in the kitchen. On the negative side, the wood needs refinishing and the old glue needs to be removed from the bottom, so my savings in purchase cost will be eaten up in labor prepping the wood. Since I have plenty of spare time on my hands, no big deal. I've run a few pieces thru my planer and the old glue comes off easily. On the finished face the results from planing about 1/64" are decent, but some finish sanding is still required and chatter and snipe may be a problem.

My question is, should I leave the finished face alone and refinish it in the traditional method after the floor is laid, or should I run it all through the planer first, followed by laying and sanding, or perhaps should I run the planks through a drum sander (which I don't own yet but have been looking for a good excuse to buy one) instead of planer to get a better initial finish with less skipe and no chipping of knotted and birdseye areas? Any other suggestions would be helpful.

If you haven't ever done what I'm attempting, opinions from experienced installers would be helpful, but I'm really looking for advice from someone who has recycled old flooring in the way I'm planning to do it.

Thanks...Rory.

Sounds like great wood
Is the wood shorts ? I believe most 3/4 glued down back then would have been shorts. It's actually nice that it was glued, not having to deal with pulling nails.
Your idea of running it through the thickness planer on the bottom side is a good one. Important to get rid of the old glue, whether you end up doing a naildown or gluedown install. If you go with gluedown again, I would figure on a vapor barrier,(Bostik MVP or Mapei Planniseal).
IMO, wouldnt worry about the surface. After installation the whole floor will need to be hit with a drum sander. If you plane the surface your opening a can of worms when it comes time for the drum sander (on sight). If you run it through a standing drum, your still looking at a drum after install.

Thanks for the advice. Yes, it really excellent wood, no warping, cupping, weathering or ground-in dirt. It is all "shorts", the longest pieces are no more than 16 or 18" and many are 12" . There are maybe 3,500 to 4,000 pieces in all, probably 5% throw-aways due to damage when removed. Can't do a naildown installation, it has to be glue down due to finished floor height issues and also the cost of installing a subfloor.

Shouldn't be an issue doing a gluedown again, long as all the conditions are right.
I'm assuming it was originally installed in the old "cold stick" adhesive ( petroleum base black tar stuff). Suprised your able to plane that stuff off. I'm sure it's crystalized, but I would think it would gum up the planer blades.

Surprisingly, the adhesive is not the black petroleum-based stuff, which I am well familiar with. It's very crystalline and brittle, a reddish-amber color and appears to be either a form of urea-aldehyde or casein, which I've worked with in instrument making and wooden aircraft construction. Neither would make sense for concrete bonding unless it was glued to a wood sub-floor instead of nailed, and the subfloor was attached to concrete and too thin to nail into. No evidence of wood subfloor sticking to it that I can find so far, however.

The stuff is hard but turns to a coarse powder in the planer and doesn't gum up the blades at all. I planed about 200 linear feet of the glued side this afternoon. Cleans up marvelously, although I may have to run the planks with heavier glue through my router table, two passes each, to clean out the grooves on the gluing face. What do you think?

I discovered a few pieces stamped "Chickasaw Hardwood, Tennesse", who are still in business and have been turning out flooring since 1905. It's white oak, circa 1970.

Sure wouldn't want to mess with the t&g profile attempting to clean the grooves on the shaper or router table. Tough without seeing where the residual glue is. Well geez...I would think it would only be on the bottom edge of the groove, but not actually in the groove. If that's the case it would be a breez to set up, and wouldn't affect the t&g.

Man, that sounds like some great wood, gotta have alot of charachter. Brought up installing Chickasaw, and my father before me , kinda gives me the warm fuzzies