I purchased a Cen-Tec metal detector from Harbor Freight to check some reclaimed wood before I ran it through my planer. The wood is heart pine stair treads from my mother-in-law’s house which was built around 1907.
We recently sold the house, and the new owners are completely rebuilding it. Although they’re saving a lot of the doors, windows, and flooring, they decided to part with some of the stairs. The top of the boards have multiple layers of paint, and the bottoms are raw wood.
I started on one of the boards today, and after I removed a dozen or so large nails, I then used the Cen-Tec wand to make sure I hadn't missed any. It immediately found a couple of small nails I had missed, but it still beeped to tell me there was something else after I removed them. I narrowed the area down, scraped around on the paint, and found a tack that I was able to get out after a struggle. The hard grain had bent the point over on the tack.
I was pleased that the detector had worked so well, and I made another pass over the surface as a final check. It beeped again. The wand helped me zero in somewhat, but I still couldn’t see anything, so I used some paint stripper to peal off the top couple of layers of paint. While scraping the surface with a putty knife, I finally hit something that felt like metal. It was a small finishing nail.
With that one removed, I made another few passes and kept getting a beep. This one took, even more, searching until I finally spotted it under more paint. Once that one was removed, the wand said the rest of the board was clear.
For 39 bucks, (more like $30 with HF’s 20% coupon), I saved a planer blade and a lot of hassle changing it. If you’re using any reclaimed wood, you should take a look at the Cen-Tec wand. It’s cheap, and it works.
We recently sold the house, and the new owners are completely rebuilding it. Although they’re saving a lot of the doors, windows, and flooring, they decided to part with some of the stairs. The top of the boards have multiple layers of paint, and the bottoms are raw wood.
I started on one of the boards today, and after I removed a dozen or so large nails, I then used the Cen-Tec wand to make sure I hadn't missed any. It immediately found a couple of small nails I had missed, but it still beeped to tell me there was something else after I removed them. I narrowed the area down, scraped around on the paint, and found a tack that I was able to get out after a struggle. The hard grain had bent the point over on the tack.
I was pleased that the detector had worked so well, and I made another pass over the surface as a final check. It beeped again. The wand helped me zero in somewhat, but I still couldn’t see anything, so I used some paint stripper to peal off the top couple of layers of paint. While scraping the surface with a putty knife, I finally hit something that felt like metal. It was a small finishing nail.
With that one removed, I made another few passes and kept getting a beep. This one took, even more, searching until I finally spotted it under more paint. Once that one was removed, the wand said the rest of the board was clear.
For 39 bucks, (more like $30 with HF’s 20% coupon), I saved a planer blade and a lot of hassle changing it. If you’re using any reclaimed wood, you should take a look at the Cen-Tec wand. It’s cheap, and it works.
