Paint Stripping

Before I start applying Durabond and then lime plaster, I focus this weekend on making more progress with stripping paint. I did a pass over most of the room using SpeedHeaters and at this point I need to go with chemical strippers to reach the rest of the paint blotches. I want to get most of the paint off of the wood that touches plaster before I apply new plaster because the chemicals are messy and it gives me some wiggle room to make a mess and not ruin fresh plaster.

After abandoning CitriStrip, I’ve been using Jasco’s paint stripper that is stronger and requires gloves to use. This stripper works in about 15 minutes and then requires an after wash to neutralize it. After the stripper is applied, I use the dental picks along with scouring pads to remove the paint and then wash off the white haze using the after wash.

Baseboards after first removing paint with SpeedHeater followed by chemical stripper.

Baseboard stripped entirely with SpeedHeater and then chemically stripped up to the old gas line.

Working on door moldings.

The paint stripping eats up most of the time because it is very tedious to apply stripper, scrape/scour it off, then clean everything up with after wash. Another tedious project emerges with the closet door. I left the door off with applying a coat of stain on the door. After the stain dries, I noticed a lot of sanding scratches that were annoying me. After stripping the doors, I noticed some old sanding marks especially where the grain of the wood changes. or example I’d see vertical scratches on a horizontally oriented part of the door. I don’t know if these were original to the door or maybe done during one of the periods of painting the door. Then I think during my prep I may have jumped grains too fast leaving some scratch marks. I want to try and eliminate them so I go back to basics and start sanding the door using 120 grit to smooth out the scratches. The problem is that with the stain applied, I’m now dealing with the stain gumming up the sandpaper fairly quickly. I start working my way up the papers going from 120 to 150 then 220. The slow process does seem to work and I start seeing some of the sanding marks disappear but I have a bit to go and table this work for later.

Sanding off the scrtaches along with the coat of stain I applied.

There were a good amount of scratches where the wood grain changed from vertical from horizontal.