Wallpaper scoring tool

That#'s one o' they there things for making lots of pinholes in the paper & paint. I have not used that sort, but I have used a similar technique, the thing is to get plenty of holes, use plenty of wet, and leave for plenty of time (repeated applicatios of wet are good).

You could do worse than read the reviews & Q&As at:

IMHO for multiple layers there is nothing to beat a steamer for speed.

On 27/09/2021 23:44, newshound wrote: > On 27/09/2021 23:38, Chris Bacon wrote: >> On 27/09/2021 22:35, pinnerite wrote: >>> I don't relish paper stripping so searched for an aid. >>>

Depends on the paper and if its been painted.

With some painted paper all the steamer does is soften the paint rather than getting the underlying glue damp.

On painted woodchip or a plastered wall I've found the best way is to scrape off some the high points (the wood chip) with a 4 inch blade

With vinyl wallpaper you can separate the top layer from it backing and rip off a whole strip (500mm x room height) in one go leaving behind the paper backing which can be removed by wetting down.

To the OP - often there is a good reason old plaster has being papered and after stripping you may find it unsuitable for painting unless it is re-skimmed.

After scoring: Spray wall with garden sprayer a few times, possibly with a few drops of washing-up liquid in the water to help it soak in. Apply thin wallpaper paste to wall. Apply the thinnest, cheapest plastic drop sheet (the kind that is about as thin and sturdy as food clingfilm) to wall. Wait. Wait some more. Continue waiting, possibly re-wetting the wall.

Eventually the moisture *will* soak through to the bottom layer...

(If there are layers of oil paint, you're screwed. If the bottom layers are stuck on with hide glue on unsized walls, you're screwed. BTDTGTTS.)

Thomas Prufer

Argh. Taking paper of of walls is a nightmare depending on the glue used originally, some comes of if wet, other needs steam but there are just some that are immune to both and one ends up simply using elbow grease. I hate decorating. Brian

They help, followed by a good (repeated) soak with warm water & washing up liquid. I use a garden sprayer tp apply. But it's bloody arm aching work!!

Invest in a professional scraper like this one too -

Not if you use a professional long handled scraper. The sort that is normally used for removing flooring adhesive before re-carpeting commercial areas.

But if it comes off too easily the walls were not prepared properly the previous time it was papered.

When I purchased my 1908 house previous owners had papered over distemper paint which must have immediately sucked all the water out of the glue. Result - the paper had been re-stuck (badly) to the walls with Sellotape. Getting the paper off was doddle, getting the distemper paint off and sealing the walls was a tiny bit harder. Lots of water and industrial sludge to dispose of. :) :)

For multiple layers of paper ? At a guess, useless.

With all wallpaper stripping the ideal is to remove as large pieces of wallpaper as you can, at a time. All that scoring the paper will achieve is divide it up into even smaller pieces which if left untouched might have come off in bigger pieces. From memeory I would investigate steamers which have propbably come down a lot on price over the past four of five decades. This might be where scoring might come in handy in allowing better access for the steam although soaking alone should eventually achieve this.

bb

The Paper Tiger is really good IMO, but in any case you really need a steamer. They are not very expensive, you could probably sell it on Gumtree afterwards

The OP is enquiring about the use of a device that puts in multiple pin picks in to the surface each of which will allow water to get to the glue at the back of the paper. It will not necessarily cause the paper to come off in smaller strips.

Very long while since I have done this but I found scraping the surface of heavy weight paper with a serrated edge followed by steaming worked best.

A search turns up nothing similar:-)

I suppose a 4" length of scrap saw blade would do.

That was very helpful. Thank you.

It's worth sorting the reviews by best-worst as well as worst-best.

Quite. Anything from lots of cracks, which aren't too bad to deal with, to "most of the plaster fell off with the wallpaper".

It's necessary to clean residual glue off the wall very carefully, it can make paint craze or flake.

These spiky wheel things can damage plaster and leeave tracks which paint shows up very clearly.

Mind you, that said, both paint and wallpaper can each give problems.