Cleaning reclaimed parquet tiles mahogany and Oak and tools required

We have sourced the Oak parquet for the front room and Mahogany parquet for the Captain's cabin,

slightly extravagent? the reason is not of extravagence but more due to moisture and rot, hardwoods are used in boat building for obvious reasons Teak and Mahogany are more oily therefore less porous the same with the strength of the Oak structure.

However they are very fitting the boat as previously stated is made of beautiful old Oak, the deck is either Teak or mahogany, the kitchen is now reformed from the old Teak, we are transforming Tino once more into a houseboat fitting of her design build and structure.

Now to the job in hand, boring,  arduous, awkward all words that can describe cleaning old bitumen from parquet floor tiles.

As we have never done this before it took a little while to come up with the right tools for the job.

What we came up with, one of our handy multi purpose tools,  an ordinary floor scraper and new blade, a long thin flat stanley blade connected to a base with a handle, get them everywhere, screwfix are cheap, a wire bush and a little wooden hammer with the small rounded edge, almost a toy hammer for tacs.

The floor we have bought is quite dirty, looks like it was in a hallway and laid on an uneven floor, some of the tiles have hardly any bitumen and are easily scraped, the floor scraper is at the right angle to get a start, others have thick bitumen which is easily cracked with a few taps of the hammer. the tile is scraped wire brushed and put in a pile, one thing has become apparent, the better the level of the floor the better the longevity of it staying in one piece, the floor is out of a large stately home, it was replaced as tiles had raised, to our advantage in the long run but a lesson to learn. the tiles have never been sanded since their original application, the floor has to be dead level to achieve the best results.

I have found it easier to just sit on the floor and work from there tools around me, hoover up the dust every say ten tiles so you don't get a build up and just get on with it, the end result is important to keep in mind, it is quite a job mentally staying focused, it will look good...............

Only 600 to go........

Messy job as you can see

Apparently I looked like a chimney sweep after ....