Paint removal

[Jimk]

Mmm.

Napalm?

[Jimk]

I was thinking drop some diesel on it & light it....

[Arthur2]

Hi all. I've been scraping paint from the stairs last 2 days. Started with bartoline and then changed to heat gun. The inner most layer is a stain and varnish..it seems. Been encountering a lot of tarry residue...sticking to the scraper..pain in the a***

Any tips?

Thanks.

Arthur

[Lurch]

On Wed, 27 Jun 2007 21:02:48 +0100, "Arthur2" mused:

GSI.

[Mungo "Two Sheds" Toadfoot]

Hire time machine, go back 2 days, and never start this most horrible of jobs.

Si

[Anna]

It will look lovely when you have finished, but you will never do it again

There speaks the voice of experience

Anna

[normanwisdom]

You can't do some varnishes with a hot air gun - it cooks and just goes as you describe; a tarry sticky residue. I'd go as far as you can with hot air and paint, and then do Nitromors for the varnish. What's really handy with nitromors is to have a supply of sawdust or shavings. With rubber (synthetic) gloves you can rub handfuls of shavings like a pan scrubber and it soaks up the nitromors in the process. Or scatter sawdust, brush it in and sweep it all up nice and dry.

cheers Jacob

[Stuart Noble]

I doubt it. To me it usually looks like someone has taken 99% off and then given up. It may look nice if you dismantle everything and send it off to the strippers.

[Mungo "Two Sheds" Toadfoot]

Yup, or just buy new and replace the lot.

Si

[Owain]

Or have a good fire and get a new one on the insurance.

Owain

[Stuart Noble]

But mine are Victorian Douglas Fir and look pretty stunning, even if I say so myself.

[Dave Liquorice]

If hasn't dried I'd collect up as much as possible, with something spoon like, remove more with old newspaper, then work a goodly amount of neat washing up liquid into the remains and leave. Letting the rain wash it away over time. Works well for engine oil spots on concrete.

If that failed after a week or three, pressure washer time.

A gas weed burner might do it for a small area couple of square feet tops, the flame isn't very big. For larger area a gas torch on felt type burner or a Sheen x300 paraffin woukd be more suitable. Can't decide if the heat will damage the concrete surface more than a pressure washer at point blank range.

[Scott]

I thought diesel was quite difficult to ignite. My Aussie cousin came up with a less dramatic suggestion - just to turn the paving stone upside down.

[Andrew]

You said 'some sort of concrete' originally though. Inverting affected paving slabs would only work if they were laid on soil without any mortar (or used a weak-mix mortar that can be removed), and also if the underside has the same texture/pattern as the top, which not all do and UV light will have affected all the others but not the underside of the paint-stained one.

[Scott]

Yes, I was not sure what it was at the time of writing. I thought the underside might be different too.

[Dave Liquorice]

You'd still need the weed burner to get the diesel going...

If there is something to act as a wick, parrafin would burn but not hot enough over an area to do much to the paint.

Petrol, don't go there.

[Andrew]

Could you reposition it somewhere out of view, nearer to the edge of the patio or whatever ?, and substitute it for an undamaged one ?.

[newshound]

Burning the resin (which will be difficult) is just going to leave the red iron oxide pigment stuck in the roughness, but now bonded with tarry material. A bit like chip pan residue.

Pressure washer and time.

[Scott]

That's an idea, or just get a new one if it's a standard size. It's in the back garden, so there are various options., including potentially removing it and planting a shrub as it's peripheral.