Stripping 101

well, that should result in a bunch of wayward Google searches.......

both Ann and Melissa asked me about stripping, so here goes. In general, I try to avoid chemical strippers because they are very harsh, and not inside-use friendly. It's much better to work outside or in the shed. So I tried to use the heat gun. But there were several coats of varnish, laquer and stain, and the smell of the burning stain was way worse than the liquid stripper, so after a good atempt at the heat gun, I gave up and used the liquid stripper.

I had a gallon of "Circa 1850 Furniture Stripper" on hand. There are other brands. I know there is even a less caustic "green" stripper, but I have yet to try it. The key things to remember are:

• good air circulation: the stuff smells and if you breath it in, it's bad news
• heavy duty gloves are a MUST. the orange ones.  Otherwise, the stripper will eat through the little plastic ones
• work in "areas". pick a side or a set of spindles and spread generously using a cheap paint brush. Wait a couple of minutes and "move the stuff around" with the paint brush again. This loosens up the finish.
• Once your finish is "moveable" use whatever works to get it off: flat surfuces do well with scrapers (metal or plastic, though be prepared to wear down the plastic one). On funny shapes, I buy a couple of metal wire brushes. This workds especially well on round surfaces (I've done a lot of kitchen chairs!!!)
• Depending on the original finish or layers of finishes, you might have to do the same area 2 or 3 times. In this case, I had to do everything twice, 3 times for the detailed grooves on the vertical sides of the backrest.
• Once I am satisfied I got 90% off, I spread a tiny bit more and then rub the whole thing down with steel wool. This cleans up any stripper left on the wood and acts as a light sanding.
• You might still need to sand a bit after, but in this case, I didn't sand, the steel wool was plenty.

And there you have it. I once worked on a big project (front door of the house) and figured out that if I poured the used stripper through a mesh, I could reuse the same liquid over and over again, just get rid of the paint from it.

Comments

[ann (fchen)]

thank you!! :)