Removing Lacquer from Stone Fireplace

[Dave]

We recently purchased a home with a large stone fireplace. The fireplace had really large brass framed glass doors. The brass frame covered up about 4 inches of the rock all the way around. Before we moved into the house, we had the interior painted and a lot of the woodwork "refurbished" (e.g. the oak fireplace surround). For whatever reason, when they touched up the oak surround, the removed the fireplace doors, sprayed on a coat of some kind of clear coat (lacquer?) and then put the glass doors back on. My wife hates the brass/glass doors thing, so I removed it. The stone behind all of it is jet-black with soot. I'm going to buy some stone/brick fireplace soot remover/cleaner and try to clean it. My concern is that, since there is a coat of a lacquer over soot, I won't be able to get the soot off until I get the lacquer off and I don't know if the stone cleaner will remove the lacquer. What would I use to remove lacquer from stone? Thanks.

[Lawrence]

Thanks.

Laquer thinner?

[Karl S]

If you know for sure that it is lacquer, use lacquer thinner. If all you know is it is a clear coating, use paint remover. Paint remover contains stronger solvents (sometimes several) and will remove a variety of coatings.

Often, when you try to remove coatings from masonry with liquids, you only remove some of it and cause the remainder to penetrate deeper into the surface.