Removing flooring from a concrete slab can take twice as long when a scraper’s blade dulls. A blunt blade tends to glide along the top of rather than pull up carpet, laminate, tile or wood, requiring crews to make several passes to get it all up.
The good news is that sharpening the blade isn't a mammoth task: It takes no more than two minutes and standard blades can be sharpened using a hard stone rock or sandpaper discs. Carbide-tipped blades last longer than steel blades, but must be sharpened with a special carbide silica stone.
Surface type also affects blade life. Rough concrete dulls blades faster than a trowelled surface. There’s nothing you can do about what’s underneath the floor, so take the correct steps to extend blade life wherever else possible.
While you can expect to sharpen scraper blades during a project, choosing the right blades in the first place extends their life and reduces maintenance time.
Shorter blades are designed for materials where the bond between the flooring and the concrete is extremely strong, such as vinyl composition tile (VCT). They also work well for parking deck coatings, epoxies, and elastomeric coatings. This is because shorter blades have significantly more pressure per square inch and can break through strong bonds more effectively. A longer blade would dull much faster due to excessive pressure on its edge.
Users often try to correct the effects of dull blades by changing the angle of their machine. Increasing the angle between the machine blade and floor is a telltale sign that it's time to sharpen or replace a blade. Angling the blade may increase its effectiveness in the short-term, but you risk damaging the concrete underneath the floor and breaking the blade as it hits the concrete at a higher angle. This mistake is particularly common with first-time users; inexperienced contractors often report that their machine is faulty when in fact the blades need sharpening.
Removing flooring in the wrong direction also damages blades. Joints run in two directions: north to south and east to west. If a blade hits them head on, it can become blunt or even break. Most experts recommend running the scraper from corner to corner to avoid joints.
