I feel like I'm missing a step PrepHole. I started stripping the paint off of all 4,500ft of moulding in my 1800s house to return it to its natural wood. Thought it would be a nice indoor winter project. There's like 6 layers of paint covering it. Citristrip isn't doing shit after letting it sit covered for 24hrs. I've done furniture before and it was never this big of a headache, I actually found it a nice relaxing project. This doorway for example ive stripped, scraped, sanded 3 times and it's still barely coming up. What am I doing wrong?!
Painter here, give up, paint it desired colour, or get new timber. Please don't do this to yourself. I would class this as a suicide tier job.
Especially in winter when you have the windows closed to keep the heat in. Oh boy.
Hope you like those paint vapors and lead dust. If there was ever a time to wear a sheep mask, it is now. Hope you have a good 3M face mask.
>lead dust
Why would anyone use leaded paint indoors? For boats it is (was) used to prevent barnacles.
There was no downside until deteriorating building and ignorant residents chewed sweet leaded paint chips. It was wonderful for structural steel and anything metal inside a building, and a fine protectant for wood.
It was also convenient to make onsite.
Well, frick. Frick everyone who paints over natural wood. I'm gonna sell the house now tbh
I have felt a lump in my nuts since I started this hmm
I second the fricking of people who paint over beautiful natural wood. Run into this shit in every place I have ever tried to restore.
>paint over beautiful natural wood.
It's probably just awful poplar or some other shit like that
>paints over natural wood
That wood was shit tier back in the 1800s. It was never intended to be varnished. I agree with
you are going to go fricking insane trying to get that molding to look nice.
Now hold on there Quickdraw... If the painted over wood is actually beautiful, or even pretty for that matter, then sure: whoever decided to do that is an idiot. But not all "natural wood" is beautiful. Sometimes it really is just a good way to hold up a coat of paint, guys. Looking at OP's pic, his stuff really isn't all that great. Make the winter project installing new that actually is beautiful.
Look at the grain pattern. They painted over it for a reason.
Use some good paints and colors. Give your house a fresh look and move on from the learning experience. That's the construction game with fields we're experienced in let alone getting outside of our own skill sets.
Contractor here. I came to say the same.
OP, stripping paint off anything, let alone trim, is completely insane. Either paint in a new color, or replace the trim.
even if you could somehow get the paint off, the trim under would look like shit and would not even stain correctly.
Also, there is a reason why no one uses actual wood stained trim anymore.
>>Also, there is a reason why no one uses actual wood stained trim anymore.
What is the reason
It looks like tacky outdated trash.
Go with a nice neutral and keep your resale appeal.
>never make your home your own
>spend your whole life making sure your house is valuable to the next goy without regards to your personal enjoyment
Kys you bottom line skimming piece of shit
(I'm also a gc but you're clearly fricking moronic)
Cost is the main reason, what the "muh beyootiful natural wood" clowns dont know or won't admit is that not all wood is stain grade and typical construction grade wood species looks like hot garbage when stained.
So if the moldings are milled from solid clear vertical grain mahogany or oak or walnut that are stain grade that's one thing, but that shit is crazy expensive.
Also moldings like base and casings and chair rails get a lot more wear than most people imagine and clear finishes don't offer the same kind of protection and washability that opaque ones, and make repairing common dings and scratches that moldings experience far more involved and aesthetically unsuccessful than a simple fill and paint touchup.
You can scrub or mop up against painted moldings for decades without more than a few touch-ups and have them looking acceptable, you simply can't do that with clear finishes and if any dirt or water or cleaning chemicals penetrate the finish film it can leave visible stains that require a complete strip and refinish that still might not look great.
All of those moldings are there to take abuse and protect other things like walls and doors, not just to look pretty.
>So if the moldings are milled from solid clear vertical grain mahogany or oak or walnut that are stain grade that's one thing, but that shit is crazy expensive.
most of the stained trim in ordinary houses is the same type wood as is used for painted trim, except that painted trim can be finger jointed so that short pieces can be used. Also, stained trim is pretty much never caulked, which is a fairly laborious process for painted trim.
And as for your claim that painted trim wears a lot better than stained trim, that's not true in my experience. People just don't do a lot of scrubbing and mopping of most of the floors in their houses, and don't slam a vacuum cleaner against the baseboards either.
The main reason you don't see stained trim in new construction very often is that many homeowners like painted trim. When we go into an old house with stained trim, and prime, caulk, putty, paint two coats, it brightens up the place and looks better to me.
> a fairly laborious process for painted trim
run bead. smooth. wow such laborious.
You need yo play with your caulk more.
>most of the stained trim in ordinary houses is the same type wood as is used for painted trim, except that painted trim can be finger jointed so that short pieces can be used.
OPs house is from the 1800s when even common framing lumber was clear VG and trim definitely was, not finger jointed.
The point you miss is that IF moldings are made specifically to be stained ie are stain grade hardwoods ( which are still a thing and were certainly not uncommon in the 1800s), then a case can be made that they deserve to be left that way or restored.
But the fact that moldings are made of wood doesn't mean they are worth staining, lots of common construction woods look like shit when stained.
And yes, opaque paint wears better and requires fewer recoats over time than typical clear finishes on wood even in the absence of lots of scrubbing or hard contact. It's just a fact, especially with darker stained woods that get any direct natural light exposure.
Full list:
>much harder to install as you have to get every cut exact, you can't just compensate with caulk and filler
>more expensive as you need a higher quality wood
>problematic because all your wood and all your stain must be an exact match or certain pieces of trim will stand out
>outdated everyone just paints now
Doing wood stained trim in a house could add like $10k to the cost
you can lead a horse to water, but that water probably has lead in it
use a heat gun
This. Or a steam wand. It's the heat that will cause it to loosen.
+1, heat gun, scrape then hand sand
You're not missing anything. Methylene Chloride got banned by the EPA in 2019 which was the primary ingredient in citistrip and the actual good paint strippers. The new formula is liberal bullshit that doesn't do anything.
I found two cans of that QRB infomercial paint stripper from the 90s in an old couples garage, had the dye kit too. They wanted to get rid of it after a decade after never using it. so I took it home, let it sit in my garage for another decade. Finally used it to strip the years of paint off an antique dresser. shit melted the paint off, sad you can't have nice products.
linkrel
I too enjoy lead dust
You're not doing enough scraping.
The only way to do this would be to gently remove the molding, use a real stripping agent in the garage and then use a sand blaster to remove any remnants of paint
I would just repaint
>use a sand blaster to remove any remnants of paint
Sandblasting is not a viable method for removing paint from wood unless you want it to look like picrel
Kek
It all depends on the media you mong
I suppose I said sand blast but you'd obviously use something lighter duty than Sand
They blast off char from old intricate milwork in high end buildings after a fire when the millwork is still mostly in tact
You are doing nothing wrong. Stripping psint is a night mare. Let alone all those small intricacies. I refinish my deck thar was painted. Only feasible way was a angle grinder and diamond blade. There is zero chance I'd attempt molding in place.
Just replace the fricking molding with clear pine from Wholesale Millwork or whomever, and stain it. There's nothing special about that molding.
Get some Aircraft Stripper and some nylon brushes.
You should take all the trim out and let it soak in paint stripper vapors for a few days/weeks
Could make a sort of chamber with a vaporizer/mistifier and a fan to circulate it around
Then scrape it all off, sand, restain and refinish
I still think it'd be easier and faster to remake the trim yourself from scratch though, maybe finish a small piece all the way to see if the underlying wood is worth the effort
lives under a rock
Why do people act like paint was invented in the last 50 years? That's paint-grade fricking trim you dumbass.
Try easy off oven cleaner. I've used ti to strip paint off old car plastic quite successfully.