DIY refinishing with paint stripper
Sometimes you have door frames or window frames that have so many coats of paint on them they look ugly. The paint job on it has actual cracks in the paint. Generally, when I do this DIY refinishing I strip the paint off.
Stripping paint off a door frame or window frame can be quite a messy job. There are all kinds of paint strippers which are available from different paint suppliers. But not are the same, some are stronger and more potent than others. So you have to do some research to see which one is the strongest if you want the very best paint stripper.
To start off with you have to cover the floor with plastic and tape. Next, you have ready for yourself a pair of good quality rubber gloves not dishwashing gloves but a pair of real rubber gloves. A pot or pan to dispense the stripper from, a paint brush (this can be an old brush lying around that still works) you can use to paint stripper on with. You’ll need a scraper of your choice I usually use a few different types of scrapers for different ways of scraping. I use wood paint scrapers, a hard bladed putty knife or a five in one multipurpose tool and some coarse steel wool. Also it’s wise to have some fresh water in a bucket close by.
The trick with the best paint stripper is to put lots on and let it sit for a couple minutes, and when you see the paint starting to crinkle, take one of your paint scrapers or the tool of your choice and scrape it off. You can scrape the bulk of it off with one of your paint scrapers into a can or a container of some kind. There will probably a lot of paint stripping left on the wood, so re-apply liberally again more of the best paint stripper, let it sit for a few more minutes until the paint starts crinkling again (the crinkling indicates to you that the paint has separated away from the wood and is ready to come off). The reason I keep on repeating best paint stripper is the weak ones will make your job almost impossible.So do your research look up something called “cc4″ and “methylene” this is the active ingredients that dot he job.
Don’t forget this is toxic waste and you have to dispose of this properly.
Now that you have removed the bulk of the paint off the wood you need to re-apply the stripper again repeat the process again but this time using the steel wool. The steel wool does a fine job on removing the last layer of paint. It also gets into crevices and cracks where a flat blade won’t get into.
When you’ve done the whole frame this way, let it sit for a while until it’s dry. When it’s dry you can sand it down to a smooth finish.
Any small spots that you feel need to do more work you can use a very sharp scraper and some strong sandpaper to clean up the wood. Now we are ready to either paint or stain the wood.
