Old varnish removal

[owendov17]

My 1947 Vertue has lots of crooks and nannies full of old flaking and discoloured varnish they are very difficult to get at I have tried Nitromoores but it does not seem to have the effect it used to have, has it been made more envinomently friendly.
Any ideas

 

[Peterduck]

I'd be trying a carefully-wielded heat gun and a scraper made forma broken hacksaw blade with the teeth ground off. Bring the heat gun slowly to the work until the varnish bubbles and no more, then scrape the softened varnish off. Yes, those crooks and nannies are the very devil, aren't they?
Peter.

 

[mollyoxford]

Hmm, I thought NitroMors wasn't as good as it used to be when I used it last month.

Just for info, on spars (hardly any crannies) I ran a direct face-off between NitroMors and delicately wielded big belt sander (80 grit).

With NitroMors there is more time scraping off bits that didn't come off. With Sander there is just as much time smoothing out the bits it overdid.

Of course the hand sanding part then takes the same time for either :-(

Used the heat gun on handrails - urgh, fiddly... but did the job.

 

[lesweeks]

Heat gun. Hardly any risk of burning (unless you really try hard) and no nastly chemicals to clean up and dispose of. For big/long jobs, best worked in conjunction with a pint. Hardly slows you down and makes it almost a pleasure!

 

[xtiffer]

As a traditionalist I have always used French cooper's scrapers with or without the use of a heatgun.
I now use a Dremel for all the fiddly bits but be very careful, they can fly away a bit.
Cheers,
Chris Reynolds

 

[laurance]

Decorators and furniture restorers know to use caustic soda dissolved in water, thickened up with flour and applied with No. 4 wire wool. It is obviously potent stuff so keep a hose on hand for neutralising any that gets where it shouldn't and apply to SWIMBO for some Marigolds, pink work best.

 

[mjcp]

I can confirm that Caustic and water will remove varnish....

I mixed some caustic and water in a Pyrex jug sitting on the wooden worktop at home in preparation for unblocking the sink...

However, the two reacted and bubbled over the rim of said jug, the resulting liquid quickly dissolved the counter's varnish, which came off easily as I cleaned up the mess.

Warning: it did discolour the area where it came into direct contact. Hence, do some experiments with ratios and amount you apply on an inconspicuous area. That said, the discolouration sanded off very easily, so it was only on the surface.

mjcp