I'm helping my girlfriend remove carpet at her home.  Underneath are the original hardwood floors.  Home was probably built in the 50's.  For the most part they are in excellent shape with just a couple water stains that will be covered up with plants/furniture/rugs.  However when we got to the hallway carpet and ripped it up, the remains of the padding that had been crushed is stuck like a son of a b!tch to the floor.  I'm wondering what I could use to remove this without damaging the finish.  We tried a sample area in the closet and a buffer just overheated the finish and melted it off,  sandpaper scratches too much.  I'm wondering if there is a liquid similar to "goof off" or a bug and tar remover that might removed the crushed padding and not harm the wood's finish?

Maybe a razor scraper or a putty knife?

Sounds like you may have to rent a floor sander, and refinish just the hallway...

I hear you can use waterbased polly on floors these days. This dries a lot faster and has almost no odor to it..

3M makes some stuff called '3M Adhesive Cleaner.'  Its pretty good stuff and shouldn't damage the floor.

My wife just cleaned off the same problem from her upstairs office.  Black pad material stuck to the hardwood.

She used "Goof Off", some sort of general paint/graffitti remover.  Worked great, and didn't damage the finish much if at all.

Jim

I did some work in an old house my Foreman had just bought. We basically gutted the inside and rebuilt it. When we pulled up the carpet we found nice wood floors just like you did. He paid to have somebody come over and refinish them and they looked brand friggen new when they were done, beautiful floors. Maybe you might want to consider that route.

Yeah, I've used the goof off on my car and bike with success, just didn't know how tough it would be on the flooring.  We'll give it a shot tonight.  I'll see if they carry that 3m stuff as well.

Goof-off is basically Xylene and Xylene is cheaper than Goof-off.  You can find it at HomeDepot or the like.

Try it in a small area, but be careful of the fumes!

Steven