Well, there’s always the poor man’s Dremel tool: a spark plug brush chocked into a power drill
“It ain’t hillbilly so long as you wear safety glasses!”
Thanks to all who responded. I see that Dremel makes a soft brass wire brush, think I’ll try that next.
If the project is a success, I’ll try to remember to post some pics…
SS
My advice would have been–don’t do it, but too late. I’m getting a hair of PTSD looking at your pictures!
Had a Victorian built in 1873. No beadboard, but beautiful trims/crown molding/windows that had been repainted…I think I counted at least 14 layers. Over varnish that looked gorgeous when I got that far (wish I could have stripped TO the varnish but it doesn’t work that way.
Anyway, decided to strip one room off the dining room (maybe 15’x18’) to make a home office for my husband, where he could see some private clients. It was fun the first month. Took 5 months altogether of part-time work, the last 5 weeks having a handyman help me 30 hrs a week. True, we also did strip wallpaper and apply venetian plaster, etc. but that wasn’t the hard part.
AT least tell me you are not doing windows in place. Please do not do this. Take them out and have them dipped.
After all the hard work, I skipped one of the doors and transoms, sanded it lightly for tooth, and faux-wood grained it to match. It looked amazingly beautiful, much better than the laboriously stripped and refinished stuff. The wood, after all the scraping and soaking, absorbed the modern (darkish) stain so much that you couldn’t see much grain–a lot of it looked like I just painted it maroon.
Um, actual advice. You’re pretty covered above. But. Make sure the floor in that room is really covered. I got a roll of plastic that I put over cloth painters tarp, and changed it out after a few hours work. Still got goopy stuff tracked thru house, but not much. Use way more stripper than you think you need. I’d buy 10 5-gallon tins at a whack. You might be able to sweet talk an auto-refinishing place to let you get larger quantities, I didn’t have luck with that but scored 30 gallon tubs of lacquer thinner there for cleanup on the cheap.
Best tool: Home dry cleaning steamer with nozzle cut open. Hard to explain, let me come back when I find the link.
Also, not just the little plastic/steel brushes, but big old scrub brushes (like for floors and bathtubs). Buy by the dozen, toss after a few baths. Halfway decent gloves that won’t melt…about 15 bucks IIRC, sold near the paint thinner and stripper. Get a box of cheapies, too, for when the good ones are soaking and you just need to tidy up your tools.
This thing. The best use for it I found was for loosening the stuck bits after scraping. As in, reapply a light coat of stripper on the damp, chunky wall, put your respirator on, if it isn’t already, and sizzle sizzle. I still use the hacked steamer for cleaning our grill and patio and stuff, so it was a good investment.
There was, as far as I could tell, every variety of paint known to man, latex, oil, whitewashy stuff, casein. I swear the layer next to the varnish was egg tempera, but it may have been more casein. These all reacted differently to the stripper. So I had to try different types.
Good luck!!!
