Crap paint stripper, vaguely boaty.

greeny

greeny

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Just spent all day with nitro mors paint stripper and scrapers, trying to strip a large external oak door and surrounding frame and windows.
The paint stripper hardly touches the varnish or laquer or whatever it is. I've now reverted to scraping and sanding with an orbital sander and detail sander. Even the sander is finding it hard work.
Are today's paint strippers going the same way as many other things (antifoul, weedkiller) in life. In the interests of the environment and personal safety have they been diluted, changed and made less effective somehow? Or do they just not work on modern day finishes.
I need to find another way or its going to take me days to do it. Lots of fancy rebates and trim beading on the windows and door as well. It's turned into a nightmare.
I've tried getting the door caustic dipped but they won't pick up at the moment and the door is way too heavy for me and wife to put on the car roof and certainly not in the spirit of lockdown.
Any ideas for an easier method.
 
greeny said:
Just spent all day with nitro mors paint stripper and scrapers, trying to strip a large external oak door and surrounding frame and windows.
The paint stripper hardly touches the varnish or laquer or whatever it is. I've now reverted to scraping and sanding with an orbital sander and detail sander. Even the sander is finding it hard work.
Are today's paint strippers going the same way as many other things (antifoul, weedkiller) in life. In the interests of the environment and personal safety have they been diluted, changed and made less effective somehow? Or do they just not work on modern day finishes.
I need to find another way or its going to take me days to do it. Lots of fancy rebates and trim beading on the windows and door as well. It's turned into a nightmare.
I've tried getting the door caustic dipped but they won't pick up at the moment and the door is way too heavy for me and wife to put on the car roof and certainly not in the spirit of lockdown.
Any ideas for an easier method.
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Try a caustic soda based paint stripper such as Owatrol Dilunett or Marine strip ( Not sure what the difference is if any) but caustic soda wont remove polyurethane or 2 pack coatings.

Alternatively Owatrol DSP800 which it is claimed will remove polyurethane and 2 pack coatings ... Its main "ingredient" is acetone
 
No joy yesterday with some old Dilunett on a door frame at home. 1920s house with 3-4 layers of paint on the woodwork, the top layer of which chips off if you look at it.
I am not looking forward to scraping/sanding. I spent March 2019 scraping multiple layers of antifouling off the boat and I suspect the old (?lead based) paint at home will be just as toxic.
Do I really need to go back to bare wood?
 
If the stuff is that reluctant to leave, maybe you do not need to go back to bare wood.

I generally find paint stripper is only useful where you can't use a heat gun . Like on metal or GRP.
Sometimes I find a scraper alone is quite effective. I have Skarsten scrapers and a Harris one with a carbide blade. If you're not heating the paint, the scraper should be sharp. The blade for an electric planer, cut in half, will go in the Harris scraper.
 
If it was pre-coated from new, it's likely to be acid catalysed lacquer. Good luck removing that with anything available domestically. Wood finishing companies would have stronger stuff but Health and Safety regs are quite stringent.
My weapon of choice would be a Linbide type scraper as mentioned above, plus lots of elbow grease.
I find that coatings applied carefully in optimum conditions fall off rapidly but accidental spills and drips last years.
 
Nitromors is not as good as it used to be - though still one of the best. One problem is that they cannot now include chlorinated hydrocarbons like methylene choride - better for your health, but not so good at blistering paint.

I agree with what has been said on Harris type scrapers - with the changeable blade. One tip I was given was to grind off the corner edges to avoid digging in. And to remember to change the blades occasionally, as these hard coatings do take off the edge quite quickly.
 
I use Nitromors but not the one that is available to the public, look on eBay one or two company’s will sell to you if you self declare that you will use it within safety guidelines set out for commercial use, proper protective gear, premises etc.
At least as good as the original Nitromors before health and safety got hold of it maybe a tad better.
yet to find any job it won’t tackle eventually......
 
Also, beware of ancient (pre-1960s) paint beneath the surface layers for it may contain lead.

Don't want to burn that off without full protective kit!
 
LW395, thanks for that suggestion, it makes sense. Before I send it I'll give the heat gun a go, after I find the mask and goggles I used last year (dom, thankyou for the reminder). Not that this is an excuse to spend the day sorting boat stuff in the garage...
 
lw395 said:
If the stuff is that reluctant to leave, maybe you do not need to go back to bare wood.

I generally find paint stripper is only useful where you can't use a heat gun . Like on metal or GRP.
Sometimes I find a scraper alone is quite effective. I have Skarsten scrapers and a Harris one with a carbide blade. If you're not heating the paint, the scraper should be sharp. The blade for an electric planer, cut in half, will go in the Harris scraper.
Click to expand...
And it needs fairly frequent sharpening; they get blunt quite quickly. Another tip is to take off the corners of the blades, so they don't dig in so easily.
 
john_morris_uk said:
The stuff you need is paramose paint remover. You’ll need to declare it’s for commercial use if you try to buy it.
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This is what I use, it will take most finishes off without effort. However I had to sign a form declaring I was a commercial user
(which I am) and had blown air ventilation. They also required a letter head. These are in a filing cabinet at my supplier and they
actually look them out once in a while. All very serious implications for them.
I believe you can buy an equivalent on line with little scrutiny.
 
I have had very good results with Removall products, which are imported from South Africa and available through www.cirrus-systems.co.uk. Or rather, were imported ... there seems to be a hiatus, though whether short term/COVId or not they don't say. I've used Removall on two GRP cars, one metal car and a GRP boat with great success as long as it's left on for a good long time, at least 24 hours.

That said, it didn't touch the nearest-the-hull layer of paint on my Hunter 490, which I suspect was two-pack and which I finally removed, slowly and laboriously, with a hot air gun and a 1/2" chisel.
 
Caustic soda (sodium hydroxide) is very cheap, mix it with wallpaper paste so it stays put.
Will burn holes in you and your clothing !
I would never get a door dipped. Seen so many lovely old doors wrecked due to being dipped
They shrink like mad and the glued joints get dissolved and open up.
 
Rappey said:
Caustic soda (sodium hydroxide) is very cheap, mix it with wallpaper paste so it stays put.
Will burn holes in you and your clothing !
I would never get a door dipped. Seen so many lovely old doors wrecked due to being dipped
They shrink like mad and the glued joints get dissolved and open up.
Click to expand...
I've never had it done either, but it worked for my friends 19th century farmhouse - it was the wife's grandfather's, and she was determined that as much original material as possible was retained. They didn't mention any problems with shrinkage, so maybe it depends on the operator. I think I recall them saying something about them having to request special treatment.

That house had some really strange features - one outside wall was only half a brick thick!
 
Just spent another day with the carbide scraper. Getting to know how to do it now.
I thought I knew before but I clearly hadn't met up with this coating before.
I reckon another 2 days should see it stripped. 4 in total. And that is 9 hour days with no stopping.
The stripper is useless on the large areas as it only softens the top few thou of lacquer each time. If I just go at it with the scraper I'm finding it much faster but harder work.
What I am finding is that for the contoured beadings and trim around the 6 glass window sections, the stripper is the only game in town. Apply the stripper, leave for an hour, scrub with a small stainless steel wire brush, repeat, repeat,repeat maybe 15 times and you get somewhere near. Which is where I am now.
I wish I could access some of the super stripper suggestions from earlier in the post, but either the shop is closed or they won't sell it you or the delivery times are too far in the future.
11 years ago I stripped the hull of a 48 foot boat using a hand scraper back to original gel. 2 of us did it in 2 days. Got to say it was a lot easier than this job.

p.s. it has to be stripped totally not just rubbed down because the oak has the dreaded black spots all over where the tanins have reacted. I need to treat it properly before recoating.
 
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