The Stripper

This week I've been all over the map with getting-ready-for-summer projects like fixing the motorcycle, mowing the grass, hauling the A/C upstairs, mowing the grass, digging the fans out of the barn, mowing the grass.  You get the picture.  Little time for true house renovation projects.

However, the big project isn't quite on hold.  I've been tooling around in the old Dodge pickup buying lumber for the siding project and delivering doors to be stripped by the Stripper.

The interior doors of our house are/were covered with innumerable coats of paint.  The top coat was yellowed and stained and impregnated with the smell of tobacco smoke.  My plan from the beginning was to strip them and I went about this the way I do most things, thinking: "how can I do this myself in an environmentally friendly way?"

Most the builders I talked to weren't very optimistic about environmentally-friendly paint stripping.  It seems the products they'd tried or heard of were only moderately successful.  I was undaunted though as I had talked to a few who had success.

The product I tried is called Soy-Gel from Franmar Chemical.  This a soy-based paint stripper that you apply and let sit for a while and then scrape off.  It worked pretty well at getting several layers of latex and lead-based oil paint off of the two doors on which I tried it, but the very first layer of paint was stubborn.  This first layer of paint is milk paint and even after two applications of the Soy-Gel, much of it remained.

This was my first foray into wood stripping and I pretty quickly decided that it wasn't something I wanted to do a lot of.  It's messy and no matter how environmentally friendly you want to be, the by-product is a nasty lead-based sludge.  The stripper itself is expensive and the process is time consuming.

I have nine interior doors that need stripping along with door casings for four doorways.  The door casings I'll do myself, but I decided to ship off the doors a few at a time to Tillotson Trading where they dip them into a vat of stripping solution and they come out entirely clean of the old paint. (A small amount remained in some deep crevices but only enough to add character and prove the age of door.)

The cost having one door stripped professionally at Tillotson Trading is equal to the cost of one gallon of the Soy-Gel stripper.  I've already used half a gallon of the Soy-Gel and was only moderately successful at stripping one door.  And the folks a Tillotson pay top dollar for proper disposal of the hazardous waste by-product of their work, which is probably better for the environment than what I would end of doing with sludgy by-product.

I like the look of doors that are partially stripped, and there may be a place in our house for a couple of doors like that but, for now (with a baby on the way) I'm most interested in getting rid of all the old lead paint as soon as possible.

Comments

[house painter]

Great Job
interesting topic , I would like to read more on this topic and interior painting .

[Dnebiviza]

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