removing bitumen

I some plywood which was coated on the one side with bitumen. Is it easy to remove, if so, safe and affordable?

From my limited experience with bitumen, it'll require a powerful solvent, possibly some controlled heat, repeated removal passes and will generally be a pain in neck to get rid of. Unless the timber was coated prior to the bitumen going on, in which case there may be an easy way with a commercial grade solvent.

Unless it's a rare timber that the ply is made of, I'd buy another sheet.

Of course, someone else out there may have the magic bullet solution that I'm not aware of.

Some bitumen's are now made with a vegetable solvent, so you may not need to use heavy Industrial chemicals... but I wouldn't rely on it.


If... IF you can scrape the bulk of the bitumen off without damage and only have a paint-thin smear remaining, then good ol' eucy oil can remove the rest. But it's still hard work - lotsa elbow grease - and it's almost impossible to remove anything embedded in the grain.

Which means plenty of sanding... and burning thru the grits, as once they're contaminated with bitumen they're useless for anything else.


For the cost of consumables alone, it'd be cheaper to just go buy a new sheet.

Sorry.

I agree with Skew the cost of cleaning up will almost cost more than a new sheet,if you did get it reasonable it most likely will still look S@#$%^

thanks for your replies.

it seemed like a good idea at the time but makes sense now to give it a miss