Hello, I hope this is the correct newsgroup.
I am renovating a 1900 Victorian. It has decorative wood trim around windows and door frames. This trim has been painted numerous times over the years.
I heard of sandblasting painted wood trim. Has anyone done this? Is there a quick or better way to remove thick paint on wood trim.
Thank you in advance.
You may have heard of it but it will probably destroy the moldings in the process.
I would approach this task with a 3,000 PSI pressure washer exercising great care as you proceed.
Lew
I just discovered a product called Silent Paint Remover. Seems better than sandblasting. It removes paint with IR heat. Great reviews in some magazines.
Has anyone used this product?
thanx
I have used a Master heat gun with good results. If you don't mind burning the wood a little & you've got good dexterity, small propane torch.
beware of lead paint issues
Bob
I've seen sandblasting inside a closed container with portholes so the worker can insert hands into gloves and rotate the wood as desired. The goal was to remove some of the paint and some of the softer wood and give the piece an antique sort of look. The results were beautiful. I have difficulty thinking about what would happen if you were sandblasting without the closed container.
Are you removing all the molding and doing the stripping outside?
Joise
If the mouldings are soft wood, and possibly even if they are not, you're likely to rough it up quite a bit as you get off that last coat. I used to make sandblasted signs out of redwood, cedar, and sometimes oak. The blasting would remove wood more easlily, and therefore more deeply, in the areas between the growth rings, so the result had grooves from slight to 1/4" deep depending on the particular piece of wood! I'd find ANY other way, before I sandblasted my wood trim BTW, sandblasting IS a legitimate and common practice to remove paint from stucco in my area.
Sandblasting will damage the molding. More specifically, sandblasting will not only remove the paint, but it will remove any sharp edges in the wood--normally not something desirable for trim. Paint stripper, various scrapers, rubber gloves, coffee cans, lots of time is the way to go. A heat gun may be an alternative to the caustic chemical stripper.
There are lots of ways to remove paint from trim. Sandblasting is very harsh, however, and you're likely to pit the wood.
There was a piece in _Fine Woodworking_ a few months back that described blasting it with _baking soda_ rather than sand. Much easier on the wood, and the baking-soda residue is biodegradable. The systems seem expensive, and I'd like to try one out someday.
Otherwise, the methods available to you are:
Heat guns Caustic chemical strippers like methylene chloride and pyrrolidine
3M's Safest Stripper Sanding and grinding.My own favorite method is to use Peel Away 6 or 7 for the upper layers, and methylene chloride and wire brushes for the final layers. I also urge people to avoid Citrustrip.
I haven't, but it's the same principle as a heat gun. Try a heat gun first.
It also seems to work best on large flat surfaces, like doors. Getting in the crannies of trim seems to require chemicals.
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