hi I'm Todd langwell the flying
Furniture guy from R&D wood shop in
Scotia New York today I want to show you
how to completely strip paint from wood
today I want to show you how to use uh
paste stripper and a heat gun we're
going to use one drawer with just a past
stripper so you can see how the paste
stripper works on just the drawer and
then I'm going to use a heat gun on one
side and then use the paste stripper so
you can see how fast the heat gun can
take a uh the paint off wood so what we
like to
do we get the paste stripper I I like to
use a zar paste
stripper or a dad's paste stripper uh
make sure you have a well ventilated
area or you wear a canister style mask
with this so you simply need to just
brush it
on and the idea behind paste stripper is
that you just leave it that's how the
past stripper work works the
best is by just leaving it alone and
letting it do its job so you need to
completely cover the entire
thing and give it a chance to do its
job most people they get impatient and
they want to check it and they want to
move the P this the paste stripper
around and that's not the idea behind
this paste stripper this stripper just
needs to set in place and be allowed to
do its job and work this typically takes
about 15 to 20 minutes if you see it
start to Bubble Up it's doing its job
but if it starts to dry out you need to
make sure to add a little bit more
stripper to it as you go now on the
other side of the house I just want to
use a heat
gun a couple key points I've had this
scraper almost 20 years you want a very
dull stripper or a very dull scraper and
you want something to be able to scrape
it clean as you go scraping it clean as
you go is the key point and having a
very dull scraper because what you're
going to do is you're going to heat up
this wood and it's going to get very
soft once you get it heated up what
you're going to do is you're going to
work from one side pushing across you're
going to want to keep that heat done
going in One
Direction typically you want to go with
the grain when you're doing uh a heat
gun although when I start myself I like
to go sideways just at the beginning
because it allows my to have a spot to
work from so once you see it start to
Bubble you wait for it and you wait and
it'll just start to pull itself right
off the idea behind this
that you're trying to persuade the paint
to come
off another key point is to make sure
that you have even pressure across the
scraper if you start to press any harder
on one side than the other you can gouge
this very very
easily another thing is to remember is
watch for smoke
if you start getting a lot of smoke
you're getting it you're getting it too
hot and you need to move a little faster
you wait for a
second see it start to bubble and at
that time start to give yourself the
little push that you need and just keep
pushing nice and even steady flow and
it'll bubble up in front of you as you
go
along
okay you do want some type of a
protective glove uh when you use the
past stripper whether it's a larger
style or a thicker glove that would
probably be best these work okay but
they're not good for just soaking in the
stripper so after just two applications
in what maybe 5 to 8 minutes with the
heat gun on that side we're going to
test this side and see if it's ready to
go
and that'll tell you whether it's ready
to go if you can just lift it
up and start to push it off it's
definitely ready to go you can
see as we catch it's lighting off the
table it all depends on what type of a
mess you want to work
with you can see relatively speaking
between a stripper and a heat gun you're
almost at the same starting spot
now now with the the stripper what we
can
do you add a little on steel wool and
the steel wool that you're going to use
is a grade three or two it comes in
what's called o which is four zeros
three zeros or a grade we like grade
three because it's a nice
coarse steel wool
you rub it
on get it to that point where you can
get it clean you can use 120 grit
sandpaper once it's dry it it's good to
go you can go ahead and start
sanding now you can use an
orbital sander on something like this
cuz it's all flat but you got to to
remember what you do to one piece you
have to do to the other so if an orbital
goes and takes it too far down you're
going to have to take all the rest of
the furniture down as well with
it but if you want to hand sand it a
little
bit like I like to
do then you can get nice even
coat all the way nice and around of
standing
and you can give the attention to detail
areas a little bit easier sometimes with
your hand than you can with an
orbital okay you can see that just paste
stripper or using the heat gun and then
the paste stripper and then sanding it
is practically the same and that's the
point that I want to show you all today
is that it doesn't matter which
application that you want to apply just
take your time with it and you'll have
the same
results I'm Todd langwell the flying
Furniture guy from R&D wood shop in
Scotia New York if you have any other
questions check out my website the
flying Furniture guide.com I'll be happy
to answer all your
questions