Apparently, in the course of my recent move, a jar of pottery sealer capsized and has glued two of my metal file cabinets to my brand new wood laminate floor. :eek:
Excuse me just a moment: AAARRGGHHHHHH!!!
Sorry, that was unavoidable.
Does anyone have any ideas of how I can a) unglue the file cabinets without b) destroying the floor and how I might c) get the remaining dried lacquer off the floor? It has dried clear, altho the file cabinets have added a lovely rusted patois :rolleyes: . Some chipped off with a paint scraper, but I’m wondering if I’ll lift up the floor if I try to pry up the cabinets.
Additional info that may or may not be helpful: This is “Pottery Sealer” made by “Easy Seal”. It claims to contain “copolymer emulsion” (their quotes). Apparently, one could clean brushes with water after using it. It’s supposed to protect terra cotta pots against discoloration and moisture stains and slow the accumulation of alkali and salt.
Any help would be appreciated, thanks.
Well, your best bet is to find a solvent that dissolves the lacquer without dissolving the finish on the floor. This stuff is apparently meant to keep oil from seeping out of lamps, so I suspect petroleum-base solvents won’t work. You can try water (doubtful, once it’s hardened) and alcohol or acetone. It might be worth calling the manufacturer and asking them for advise. Test any solvent on a spare scrap of laminate flooring if you have one.
The finish on laminate flooring is usually incredibly durable, so if you can get the filing cabinets free, you might be able to chip the lacquer off. Getting them free might be a bit of a problem, though. Is it a floating laminate floor, or is it glued to the subfloor? My first thought would be to apply a sharp blow to the side of the cabinet to apply a force perpendicular to the floor. I’d put a piece of two by four against the side of the cabinet and whack the two by four with a small sledge. (The board is to keep from denting the file cabinet.) Hopefully, that would break the bond without applying a lot of lifting pressure. If that doesn’t work, I’d use a very thin razor blade or scraper to try to cut around the base of the cabinet where the lacquer leaked. This last approach might not do the floors much good. You can probably replace one or two boards in a laminate floor without it looking too bad, provided you can get some boards from the same manufacturer and dye batch.
Could you perhaps email/call the company that made the sealer and ask them for recommendations on what type of remover would work?
That would be my first stop.
I may be completely wrong, but when you say “brand new wood laminate floor” I picture one of those floating floors that has the snap-together rectangular pieces. If this is the case, I’d probably do to home depot or a local hardwood flooring store and see if you can match the floor. If you can, you can probably just replace the 3 or 4 ‘tiles’ of flooring that have the spill on them.
But perhaps I misunderstood?
Thanks for all your replies. Of course, after posting my question, my server went down for a day because I’m what? Cursed!
The cabinets are no longer attached to the floor (yay!), and I think I may be able to chip a lot of the stuff off . I don’t want to try to replace anything except as a last resort. I had someone put the floor in, so I don’t know what kind they used, exactly. Maybe I can try some Goof Off on a spot in the closet to see if it dissolves the finish - if it doesn’t, I can try it on remaining residue.
Thanks again for your input 
.