Paint over plaster. How to remove without damaging plaster.

Why do you need to remove it? As long as it's flat you should be able to paper, paint, or whatever over the top. I'd coarse sand it by hand and anything that's still on there can be regarded as sound.

"stuart noble" wrote

It's not flat. It was under wall tiles. When/where the wall tiles came off it has left the paint patchy. Unless I rub each section down it'll be uneven otherwise it all needs to come off !

Cheers,

Paul.

Forget it. Re-skim it.

I aggree, after removing even moderately well laid tiles, its virtually impossible to get back to a decent surface for painting, without either of these.

Get a steel float and some filler. Mix up the filler with water. Add a little PVA and stir up. Go over the areas where there is pitting with float and filler. A gentle rub over when dry with some fine glass-paper on a block will leave a good surface for decorating. This avoids the need for a lot of messy work or a re-skim.

Thanks for all the advice.

My skimming ability is non existent (2 days to skim 8 sq ft !!) so I went out and bought the biggest industrial scraper I could find. (The little wallpaper stripper I was using wasn't even touching it)

It's not a massive area (av. sized bathroom), so a few evenings scraping should see it right.

Now I just have to get a decent mask as i'm sure the 60's paint i'm taking off will be leaded :(

Cheers,

Paul.