Hi all. I’m new to the forum. My wife and I recently bought a house built in 1938 with wood trim throughout that has been painted. We believe that it’s original stained wood trim underneath, douglas fur I think. We know this based on the house next door built by the same builder that has all original stained wood trim. We’d like stip it down to the original finish underneath. Does anyone know of a good resource, book or web, that describes the process and techniques to do this. I’d like to do it as efficiently as possible and be able to preserve and not damage the wood and finish underneath the paint. Thank.
Brice
Replies
A lot of labor involved. Be sure the trim is interesting enough to make it worth the effort. Generally much easier to remove the trim pieces and work on a bench.
Heat usually works pretty well if there is a stain underneath, since the stain breaks the bond between wood and paint. Heat plate is easier to control than heat gun (Warner still makes heat plates). For cleaning up residual stain or shellac, the various 'non-toxic' strippers work very well (peel away6, Soygel, Back to Nature, Ameristrip- I've tried them all). They leave the wood in a very clean and undamaged state. Better than solvent strippers, which tend to drive the stain deeper into the wood.
Often, interior paints did not contain lead, but you never know what type was used. Heat and chemical methods have the advantage of creating little dust.
Please search for 'lead paint' here.
This type of work can be high risk.
I and others have posted scores about the job you want to undertake.
-zen