Hello,
Been a while. I’m looking for a paint stripper for old molding. I want to fill a tube up and place the molding into the solution and come back and remove the paint and do it again and again. I have a house to do. I saw it on a This Old House show and the product was clear. All help would be greatly appreciated thanks in advance. Nice to be back. I lost my computer for a year and I’ve been lost ever since.
Jim
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Replies
Welcome back Jim,
Is your new computer really BIG?
Hay There,
No just a newer Dell. I went all out and got a flat screen through it's great not having half of your desk tied up. How you been? I'm in the middle of doing my kitchen. I'm combinding the dinning room and the kitchen into one room. I took out the wall between and I'm fishing new weiring in the walls replacing the nob and tube.
If you have any good ideas about stripping molding let me know I'm looking for a product I can use to strip the entire house molding with.
Jim Begley
just to let you know as of 7/06,
Mayor of the city of Bridgeton
Well Mr. Mayor,
There's a furniture stripping shop in a town near where I live. So there's probably one somewhere in your neck of the pine barrens.
I can't recommend a product because, after stripping an airplane many years ago, I decided that such chemicals were better left alone.
Congratulations on your election and best wishes in all your endeavors.
Thanks,
If you are ever this far south stop in and I'll show you around. It's the largest historic district in New Jersey, but it is also a poooooooooooooor town so I won but no one else wanted it. Look us up on line http://www.cityofbridgeton.com .
Thanks again
Jim
I can just see the headlines now ....
N.J. Mayor Caught with Stripper and No Permit ;o)
Actually, Jim, I've been in Bridgeton to look at an old theatre for a historic redo - didn't happen at least back then. It's a nice town.
The products you should consider are PeelAway 1 (paint shop) and PeelAway 7 (available at Home Depot). PeelAway 7 is more environmentally-friendly and does not need to be neutralized, PeelAway 1 is stronger and must be neutralized. PeelAway 7 does not work as effectively as PeelAway 1. Neutralization is with 50/50 vinegar:water and then water rinse and dry.
Link - http://www.dumondchemicals.com/paint_remover.htm
You really need to know what you're doing here with lead paint involved - make sure that you are fully aware of Lead-Safe techniques and protect yourself fully. As a minimum please take a look at this - http://www.state.nj.us/dca/dcr/leadsafe/
Stripping a lot of molding is tedious and time-consuming ... if it's historically-appropriate then fine. OTOH, replacing it in kind (custom knife and run in poplar) will save you a lot of time and work, for a price.
Jeff (Princeton NJ)
Edited 11/17/2007 10:19 pm ET by Jeff_Clarke
LOL, my favorite paint stripper is a hungry painter
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Very similar to my neighborhood where it's a thirsty painter.
A few options I can think of include Lye and Methylene Chloride.
I doubt you can get the Methylene with out a permit or license of some sort, being as it is a known carcinogen.
Lye based stuff can be a problem too, it will alter the wood to some extent, and is really,really caustic.
Heat and scrapers is how I go about it. Good luck with what ever you choose. BTW, Hot dip and strip tanks are Lye based (mostly).
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
"If you want something you've never had, do something you've never done"
I think I'm in the same boat as you. I vaguely remember a This Old House episode where they were redoing an old house and had to strip the paint from the clapboard siding. They were testing different areas of the house being carefull not to use the dang brand names. I rember they were using peel away, a paint shaver and several other paint on strippers. The one I remember I really wanted to try was some sort of non-toxic clear goo that didn't desolve the paint but 'broke its bond with the wood' or some such. They said it was completely safe and the host even scooped up a glop of it with his bare hands!!! I think they said it was originally used in the airline biz to strip paint from planes....sure wish I could remember what it was called.
Other than that jasco adhesive and paint remover is what we used on our old Vic. Stuff works great but is seriously nasty stuff...
Daniel Neumansky
Restoring our second Victorian home this time in Alamdea CA. Check out the blog http://www.chezneumansky.blogspot.com/
Oakland CA
Crazy Homeowner-Victorian Restorer
The product used by This Old House was RemovAll. At the time of the show, ICI was a distributor of the product. I did not see any reference to them in the first page of Google so they may or may not still be handling the product. I checked a web distributor which had it at a little over $50 per gallon so it is not cheap.
If you have the molding off, you might try building a steam tank. Someone posting some basic instructions here about one he used for windows, but the same idea holds. He used an old wallpaper steamer to generate steam and I think build the box out of foiled faced insulation board I think.
Old House Journal had an article on using steam in place to remove paint. Not detailed enough in my opinion, but might be worth looking up.
We have been using SoyGel for the past 4 years or so. We are reasonably happy with it.
We have been using SoyGel for the past 4 years or so. We are reasonably happy with it.
How does the SoyGel compare to the nasty jasco stuff?
Daniel Neumansky
Restoring our second Victorian home this time in Alamdea CA. Check out the blog http://www.chezneumansky.blogspot.com/
Oakland CA
Crazy Homeowner-Victorian Restorer
I stripped all the trim and a large staircase I used stripeze it was kind of nasty but it worked well. I used the blue gel not the orange paste it was like $13.00 a gallon but it worked real well
durn this web site! Lost all my message looking up the web site for you!http://www.franmar.com/product_info.php?cPath=21&products_id=114I don't know what jasco is. We have tried peel-away, some citrus stripper, Soygel, and methylene chloride. We like the peel-away the best.
don't put it on to start with...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
I used to strip furniture in my antique dealing days (80's). The standard strippers like Strip-eze and others are highly toxic chemicals and care should be taken using them, including using rubber gloves and in a highly ventilated area. The fumes can make you dizzy and/or sick, it will also burn your skin.
Soft woods are difficult to strip as often the paint has been absorbed into the grain. The strippers high in solvents will also lift the grain if you apply it too much---expecting the stripper to do all the work for you.
The non-toxic, safer strippers are a bit more expensive, some quite a bit more and the few I've used require a little more time to soften the paint/varnish layers.
All paint stripping in my experience requires hard work, I don't care what the product states. If you need all paint removed for a varnish/clear finish, you should expect to have to use tooth brushes, steel wool, sandpaper and elbow grease and a few days. I would often do a layer or two, put everything away, let it dry and then come back the next day. By wiping your work down and letting it dry, you get a good feel for where you are in the project. If you just want a smooth surface for new paint, you can skip the detailed labor.
Also, expect it to be messy with lots of paint gunk everywhere. Don't use your good tools as they'll never come completely clean and layer your work area good. If you want to keep something you use, clean it up while the stripper is wet as once it dries, the paint returns to paint again, or if you're lucky, just big hard chunks you can peel off.
Dip-tanks, often used in the stripping business work by soaking the wood product for a period of time and then often the person will wash the stripper off and repeat the process. When I was in the antiques business, I could always tell when someone had had their pieces 'dipped' as the grain was often lifted and the wood overly softened from over exposure to the chemical or the water washings.
My suggestion: use a cheaper toxic chemical solvent, use liberally with the the first layer, tapering off each successive layer with less solvent and more elbow grease until you get to the stage you want.
Possibly others have more information on the dip tank idea.
Hello,
Thanks for your advice. I will try to keep the your steps in mind. I have an offer from a professional painter who has a strip tank and I was going to try one room through him and see how that goes. The reason why i want to reuse the trim is that it is real hard wood and the pine would never look as good. I'll let you know how things turn out thanks again
Jim
Anyone ever tried this stuff? Just curious, saw an infomercial and didn't know if the stuff was actually good, or if it was just the same stuff as in stores.http://www.asseenontv.com/prod-pages/ready_strip_dlx.html
I tried the Ready Strip a while back and was not impressed. I bet I still have three quarters of a tub around somewhere. It is a thick paste that can't really be brushed on. It is more like working with cake icing which is probably necessary to put it on as thick as the directions recommend. I think I didn't get it on thick enough so it dried out before it softened the paint. I have found that CitriStrip works much better.
I'd imagine you'll have good results, hardwood strips better than pine, which softens up pretty quickly under stress of water or heavy solvents. Oak has a wide grain that makes for some work, but walnut and other finer grained woods seem to strip easier.