Best varnish remover?

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andyorr

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What's the best varnish remover in your opinion? Water based non-vapour types are popular now but are they any good? I need to strip wooden spars. Local furniture stripper doesn't seem keen as he has a water based system which he says isn't too good on varnish.
Any ideas apart from elbow grease and a scraper? How about one of these "flap discs" on an angle grinder?
Comments please!!!
 
Heat gun works very well.just keep the gun moving ahead of the scraper. Do a test piece first to guage distance off with the gun.
 
you can use a flap disc but you will get better results if you use it on somthing thats got less rpm other than that an old bit of a saw followed by sand paper does the job.
 
I agree. I've found a heat gun on the half setting to be the easiest way. It may seem long-winded when you start, but the strippers are messy and take so much cleaning up and going over again that the tortoise and hare syndrome wins in the end.
 
Methylene chloride cellulose stripper- that stuff like anaesthetic snot- liberally applied to the spar with a vapour-barrier like garbage-bags wrapped round it works a treat. The varnish and goop forms clots that scrape off with NO effort, but most simply falls away when you unwrap the spar. Chemicals aren't much good on 2-pack varnishes, IMHO.
 
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Chemicals aren't much good on 2-pack varnishes, IMHO.

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Nothing apart from sandpaper is much good on two-pack varnishes, which is why I hate them. At least with ordinary yacht varnish it's easy to get it off with your choice of method - heat or stripper. Personally I like a blowlamp or heat gun, but you need to practice on something first to learn how much heat to give, or the wood may show scorch marks.
 
Were you not concerned that the heat may delaminate <sic> the thin marine ply on your Heron? I have used a heat gun on real wood, but not sure about thin ply?

I have some great stuff in the shed, bought from a friend of a friend in the trade, a chemical peel. Far far stronger than the polish-in-a-paint-remover-tin that you get from B&Q. This stuff is reusable until it pretty much disappears. Why suggest this over a heat gun? I find it does less damage, well, I do less damage around the tricky bits; which with the gun turns into splinters with charcoal tips.
 
Didn't have any problem with failure of the (very old) ply.
I used the gun on half heat, which when you are doing the insides, around the frames, means that you don't get third-degree burns on your shave-hook hand.
The only charring that occurred was the bits of frame that were rotten, so no great loss as I repaired them anyway.

I even removed some epoxy coating from some ply without damage.
 
nitromars.........just wear several layers of clothing and a couple of pairs of gloves. I very easily took a two part varnish that I had applied only two years ago off my rudder stock in less than 40 mins

and it has a cool name...
 
Forget chemical strippers. Hot air gun as others have said. I use mine to strip normal varnish, 2-pack and epoxy coating on wood. Had quite a few people on the pontoon the other day saying "wow...that's easy!". The B&D model I've got has a blade attachment so it's simple one-handed job. Now I'm used to it, I run it on high power, but medium is a good place to start.
 
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. Chemicals aren't much good on 2-pack varnishes, IMHO.

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I d'know.....have just stripped 5 layers of 2-part polyurethane off the cabin floor with nitromors-type. Got through nearly a litre of the stuff though, so the hot-air gun would probably have been cheaper and quicker!

Vic
 
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