Nitromors paint stripper- why bother?

[opps]

Just spent £12 for a tiny (375ml) can of Nitromors. The instructions say that the paint will start to bubble after 5 to 10 minutes. 4 coats of the stuff and absolutely no bubbling after 30 minutes. A complete waste of time and money. I had burnt away most of the paint and wanted to remove traces of that annoying old green paint that seems to have been popular in the "olden days"- the stuff that instantly clogs your sandpaper.

I am about to place an order for some Methyl Chloride paint stripper.

 

[Wayners]

The good stuff is available in 5lt or more.
Under 5lt is not great and for DIY market

 

[opps]

The good stuff is available in 5lt or more.
Under 5lt is not great and for DIY market

I have found someone a company on eBay that sells smaller quantities I won't link to them here, but I just ordered 3.5L.

 

[mrrusty]

If you are tempted to get some Dichloromethane stripper, do be extremely careful - use it outside if you can - it is dangerous to use without ventilation/appropriate PPE. Do sometimes think some of the regs are a bit unnecessary, but control of DCM stripper maybe not!

If using inside I've found that the cheapo screwfix stuff is as good as anything https://www.screwfix.com/p/no-nonsense-paint-varnish-stripper-2-5ltr/724gt. The peelaway kits are also good but fairly expensive.

 

[opps]

If you are tempted to get some Dichloromethane stripper, do be extremely careful - use it outside if you can - it is dangerous to use without ventilation/appropriate PPE. Do sometimes think some of the regs are a bit unnecessary, but control of DCM stripper maybe not!

If using inside I've found that the cheapo screwfix stuff is as good as anything https://www.screwfix.com/p/no-nonsense-paint-varnish-stripper-2-5ltr/724gt. The peelaway kits are also good but fairly expensive.

Cheers, MC is the same stuff.

 

[mrrusty]

Y I used a bit of MC on this house - was going to use it inside as well, but after using it outside decided not to - it's evil. TBH all the other strippers work, but only up to a point. I used a load of peelaway stripping some decorated cast iron fire places with multi layers of paint, then ran out and switched to the screwfix stuff.

TBH unless what I am stripping has a high intrinsic value, I'd rather rip it out and replace with new, but then I hate decorating generally....The other problem is the lead issue of course in old paint...

 

[Munroast]

Adele and a loud speaker would probably do the trick

 

[robinbanks]

the stuff that instantly clogs your sandpaper

For getting off the little residual bits post scraping, try a coarse wire scourer (after letting the paint stripper sit for the requisite amount of time) instead- clog resistant and acts like a hundred tiny scrapers

I don't usually use paint stripper for the bulk of the work; prefer a heat gun and scraper, but stripper plus one of these for getting the trailing scraps off seems to work well

 

[opps]

For getting off the little residual bits post scraping, try a coarse wire scourer (after letting the paint stripper sit for the requisite amount of time) instead- clog resistant and acts like a hundred tiny scrapers

View attachment 393715

I don't usually use paint stripper for the bulk of the work; prefer a heat gun and scraper, but stripper plus one of these for getting the trailing scraps off seems to work well

I was stripping a customer's victorian door architrave with a heat gun. I then came across the dreaded green paint. I spent about 2 hours with the heat gun and decided that paint stripper would/should be quicker. My gun was set to 450 degrees, a level deemed to be safe by the HSE when burning off old lead paint.

The architrave has very tight grooves which need to be "cleaned" out with liquid paint remover. I will drag a chisel/scraper backwards. The curves, I have purchased some webrax pads.

Once the evil green paint has gone I can use sandpaper to finish the prep.

When sanding, if I come across green or red paint from the 50's(?), I groan. Both will clog my abrasives within seconds.

 

[Scally-Ho]

I'm not recommending this or suggesting it to anyone, but over the years I've always had excellent results from caustic soda. Full face mask and long-sleeved rubber gloves soon had the offending paint right back to wood in a short time. . .

 

[opps]

I'm not recommending this or suggesting it to anyone, but over the years I've always had excellent results from caustic soda. Full face mask and long-sleeved rubber gloves soon had the offending paint right back to wood in a short time. . .

Does that work on both oil based and waterbased paint?

 

[Scally-Ho]

Does that work on both oil based and waterbased paint?

I've used it on all paints to very good effect, even the very old lead-based paints. If you do use it, be very careful as it is highly toxic as well as caustic. It works by causing bond breaking bubbles beneath all of the paint layers.

 

[JohnD]

I find old linseed oil paint comes off easily with a hot air gun and scrapers.

The burnt residue easy sands off without clogging the sandpaper.

 

[opps]

I find old linseed oil paint comes off easily with a hot air gun and scrapers.

The burnt residue easy sands off without clogging the sandpaper.

The green and red stuff definitely clogs the 80g sandpaper in seconds. When doing exterior woodwork, I normally sand the old paint flat. I do about 5 or 6 exteriors each year, at a guess, I only burn about 3% of the paint away. When I see paint work with multiple cracks in it, not related to water ingress, it is often the result of the evil green paint under numerous coats of white paint.

 

[JohnD]

By "burnt residue " I mean the blackened or hard dry flakes and nibs left after hot scraping.

Old houses often have many layers of old linseed oil paint, which needs to come off.