Paint Stripping Notes

Hey guys name is Paul I'm a woodworker and worker for about 30 years we're going to be refinishing my father's actually my mother's hope chest was given to my mother by my father's and engagement president back in 1935 been in the family for a few years seen a few different households within the family somebody in the 1970s decided that it'd be cool to antique it so antiquing was a painting process so it's no longer cool so we're going to take it off and I'm going to show you how to do it so this video is all about about getting it down to then got a fan at my back I want to show you that real quick here one of the things I'm in my garage workshop there's the fan one of the things that that that you want to do is is make sure that you've got good ventilation because not only will it burn your skin it's caustic but the vapors inhaled will hurt your lungs and going into the lungs and it can move into the bloodstream so it can cause all the principles that said there's some precautions that you have to take so you have to be safe I wear respirators if you're gonna close but I'm because I'm in a garage I can open my door I can I can I can blow I can blow the the vapors out out of the out of the garage but you still need to be cautious if you're inside and you don't have adequate ventilation you need a respirator if you don't wear glasses you need safety glasses you need to cover your skin you know no short pants long-sleeve shirts I'll be dining rubber gloves and you gotta be careful that you don't splash it so basic precautions it is a caustic material is pretty powerful but it gets the job done and that's really what it's all about okay let's talk about some materials that you'll need to accomplish this you'll need a heat gun if you're going to if you're going to go that route again I'll show you how to use that with the heat gun you don't necessarily need rubber gloves but but you do want a pair of gloves because by the way a heat gun you know operates between 400 and 1200 degrees Fahrenheit so it gets pretty hot and it can cause some damage also the vapors from a heat gun are toxic because it's coming up it'll be drink it'll be bubbling up the paint which will create vapors especially if the pain is it is lead-based which was used you know in early time so a lot of your projects might have that you'll need a chemical stripper there's three types of chemical strippers and let's talk a little bit about that there's a caustic base stripper which is made primarily from why that's used mainly for outside solution for situations I prefer not to use it on wood projects one of the problems with lies lie basically is the mildest form is used for soap plan soap and it's in its in its most severe form it's used as a drain cleaner and it's also used for dead animals on highway there they're soaked in a solution alight to disintegrate the cartridge so pretty powerful stuff but the one bad thing about using it on furniture is it it dis colors the wood so a lot of times after you use a lie based product on a piece of furniture you have to go ahead and bleach it to lighten the wood back up so I prefer not to use a lie based product there is um the eco-friendly products which are made from plants citrus and all kinds of things keep in mind these do also have have chemicals in them so they're not hazard free by themselves but they're a little more bio bio friendly the problem with them is they're very slow to and and stripper works once you put a stripper down if it stays wet and the wet layer actually causes the chemical reaction once the air gets in there it breaks the chemical reaction so the bio-friendly strippers are very slow and they tend to try out so what you have to do is you have to wrap them in cellophane or wax paper so that they don't dry out and then usually the process is an overnight process and you come back the next day that's that that's a little bit beyond my preference so I go with a solvent based stripper solvent based strippers and methyl chloride and and they are they are caustic their tack they're they're toxic so you need to be a little bit careful with it but it's it's the quickest and and I think the best to use for this type of project with that type of stripper rubber gloves are necessary again it'll burn your skin you'll need an applicator I just like very cheap inexpensive brushes I mean I'm a big tulle guy so this is when I use cheap brushes I don't use too cheap brush it very often you should have some simple removal on scrapers are preferred on the big flat surfaces that will work well some kind of a stiff bristle brush for doing for doing that hard to get to spat spots also maybe a scrubby I'm like a synthetic scrub pan will do it steel wool will work too um I don't like steel wool on metal because it steel wool has 10 C to Russ in the metal will rust so I classic aliy don't use steel will a glass container the problem with plastic containers is a lot of times some of the some of the stronger strippers will leave right through the plastic so you want you on a glass container so we're loading up for pouring your stripper in and loading up your brush um when when it comes off you'll need a waste container so I just take an old garbage can take a garbage can bag and I'm going to use that for my waste container and you want a little dish of some sort so that when you're when you're scraping off when you're scraping off the pain it has a price to go so so that that's kind of the process there so I just take this old glass it doesn't have to be me anything that's got a flat edge to it so they can put it up put it on and push it off that's kind of what you're going to need to get started I showed you the fan earlier um you want to keep air flowing and you want to keep fresh air moving you want to keep the fumes away from you so you want to blow them out okay otherwise make sure you have a good quality respirator or not not one of those little drywall masks and dust mask it has to be a respirator that that stops vapors and if you don't wear glasses definitely you need F safety glasses something okay that's it we're going to get we're going to get I'm going to clean this up we're going to get going here okay here we go let's make this as easy on yourself as possible if your parts are disassembled let's do it any screws or bolts that can that can piece it will be much easier on you in the long run there's two ways you can remove paint or varnish you can sand it off or you can melt it off sanding is tedious takes a long time and gets expensive because you go through a lot of paper it's also real hard to get all the product all the film out of small and tight areas so I prefer to melt it off melting it there's two ways you can melt it off you can use heat high heat I'm demonstrating a heat gun here it's not my preferred method but but it does work heat guns are slow and tedious this little strip that I'm doing here is about three inches wide by 48 inches it took me about six and a half minutes to use the heat gun to get it off for the four this one side it would be almost an hour and for the for the detailed side it would it would be it would be improbable people like heat guns because they think they're eco-friendly there's no chemicals however um keep in mind that that heat guns operate between four hundred and twelve hundred degrees Fahrenheit so they do produce fumes and the fumes are toxic so you still have to use the same precautions you still have to have air blowing across it or a respirator if you're in an enclosed area I'm in my garage it's raining outside it can't be outside but I have the door open and the fan going so this is this is why I'm doing it this way again this is not this is not my my preferred method if you're going to use a chemical stripper manufacturers recommend that it be about fifty degrees here you can see it's around 62 degrees I am able to move outside make sure you shake up I use a paste base stripper so make sure it's shaken very well when you apply the strip or do it in generous coats apply it thick do it in one direction in and do it kind of like you're icing a cake the stripper I'm using is a semi pay stripper I like to semi prate case because the pace keeps it from evaporating so the manufacturer will tell you how much time to leave usually around fifteen to twenty minutes I recommend that you leave the area so you're not inhaling any and necessary fumes when you come back or during that time notice that the old finish is bubbling here I'm doing a test I want to see if it comes off and it's coming off pretty easy I'm not putting any pressure I'm just gently sliding the scraper across the top of the counter top onto a plate and then I can throw it away just dispose of it in a wastebasket it's going to take a couple coats it doesn't happen in one coat very seldom can you ever get paint often in one coat so again when you apply it I'm putting it on thick one direction kind of like icing a cake lay it down and then let the stripper do the work you don't need it there isn't a lot of effort that subscribe once it's applied leave it alone stripper works by forming an airtight layer between the stripper and the surface of the film disturbing it airtight layer is counterproductive it defeats the purpose to not play with it once it's done once it's down there's a there's a there are both Semite paste and then liquid strippers both have their place but I prefer semi pace liquid runs and liquid dries out or evaporates faster and again stripper works one that when it's in contact in contact with the surface wet so we want semi paste just a little better I'm again here I'm using it on the side so you can see that it with a liquid stripper this would be running it wouldn't be holding it wouldn't be sticking there's all kinds of carved surfaces and indents all along the side of this project so so here we go final coat and again old projects remember there's paint and then there's usually varnish underneath so I'm actually laying down a third coat here because I want to make sure that not only the paint but all the varnishes off of it so here we go or laying it down and now you can see it's pretty much coming down to bare wood there's a few paint spots I'm not going to worry about those of us at this time because what I'm going to do is I'm going to sand those off because it will require some sanding once the stripper is done and once you're done you you really do have to get you have to get the gunk off there'll be paint particles there'll be some wax what will happen is your stain won't absorb or your topcoat your clear coat won't adhere if there's all that gunk n' and waxy buildup so needs to be taken down you can you can clean it off with either mineral spirits or lacquer thinner i'm using lacquer thinner lacquer thinner is probably about ten times more potent and paint thinner it works really well and if you'll notice i'm going to i'm rubbing it in pretty well too because i want to get as much of that off as i can so that I don't have to sand that much sanding in the end doesn't have to be heavy as long as you haven't done a lot of damage created gouges and scratches in the top of your surface so wipe it down good get it get it good and cleaned off and then we'll go on to this part which is the part that I am NOT looking forward to you can notice all the carvings on that where I'm working right now and then notice all the raised parts of it you know there's all kinds of fancy detail work on it on this cabinet so I what I'm going to do here my theory is let's lay it down some extra thick layers of stripper um you know will let will really like a stripper do the work try to get it all the little crevices all the getting make sure that it's going deep into the carvings and the etchings and we're going to again try to let the stripper do the work when I come back after it's soaked in I'm going to come back in else I'll show you here in just a second doing a great job your detail so I'm going to come back now with a scraper I'm going to scrape as much of the flat surface as I can try to get rid of that but you'll see here you can see that over the carvings that the scraper isn't working in the round areas the scraper isn't working so I thought I purchased for a dollar ninety-nine I purchased a stiff bristle scrub brush and this is really doing the trick it's it it's actually turned out to be one of the better tools that I have so but again it isn't going to happen in one coat this may take three or four coats but again patience is a virtue at this time so just keep working and I don't know if you can see but it's pretty fast but I'm using a dental probe as well because the paint gets deep into those carvings and it's just real hard to get it out so I'm kind of using that you'll also notice every once in a while I use an air compressor it's okay to use an air compressor as long as the as long as the stripper isn't wet you never want to use an air compressor on what stripper because there's a chance that it can blow up in your face and your eyes and under your glasses and all that other stuff so very liberal very generous layers of strippers applied and and just kind of keep working it and eventually it all comes off and you'll have a nice finished project so it all turned out pretty good I'm real happy with the results um took me a little while took me about 15 hours to do it but the reason is be it was although all the detail work there's a this is all this is all hand-carved along here all the carvings and the etchings in here you know all the raised pieces so there was a lot of detail I actually used a dental probe to get into here so that was the reason but I'm happy with it it turned out real well um again um I probably wouldn't have done this I'm a woodworker I prefer to just make my own projects and and start from there and I don't have to do the messy part of doing the stripping and everything else but this is step one in furniture refinishing and it certainly saves a lot of money and it certainly is a good thing to do if you have a nice piece work worth the time and effort so I turned out to be walnut which is which is really a beautiful wood the next step will be sanding what I'm going to do is there's there are a few paint spots here so they'll need to be standing about I'm going to start with 120 grit and I'll go up to 180 I may stop there I may go to 220 just depends on how it turns out I probably not going to polyurethane this one I'm probably going to oil it simply because of all the carvings one other thing too polyurethane does is it tends to go on a little thicker even though my my technique is there to make sure you watch that video by the way if you're going to clean you clear coat your project really important because a lot of people room ruin the project when it gets a polyurethane because just because it just comes out so thick so I finish I show you how to fit it I show you how to apply it properly but in any case um how do your thing even though it's thin is still thick so I think to show this off I think it show better with an oil ethical lay a little flatter it won't it won't it won't fill in all the all the indentations with much so I'm probably going to do that my next video is going to be on sanding so make sure you subscribe oh by the way um my website is Paul's DIY solutions dot solutions I'm sorry Paul's DIY dot solution not com it's dot solutions with a plural make sure you go there there's a written description of the whole procedure that I just did as well as applying call your the applying stain properly and each of those has a two-page summary sheet that's in a PDF format so you can download it and print it airplane going over but you can download print it and that way you can have it with you while you're doing your work so so check it out make sure you subscribe I hope you learned a lot that's it for this phase the next phase again is sanding I'm going to produce a video on that that but that probably won't be out in time for you guys but um it'll be there for the future so I hope you enjoyed I hope you learned a lot please leave comments I'm more than happy to answer your questions and I usually I'm pretty good about responding