 Hey guys, name is Paul. I'm a woodworker and we're a worker for about 30 years. We're going to be refinishing my father's, actually my mother's, hope chest was given to my mother by my father's and engagement present back in 1935. Then in the family for a few years, seen a few different households within the family. Somebody in the 1970s decided that it'd be cool to antique it. So, antique was a painting process. So, it's no longer cool. So, we're going to take it off and I'm going to show you how to do it. So, this video is all about getting it down to... I got a fan at my back and I want to show you that real quick here. One of the things I'm in my garage workshop, there's the fan. One of the things that you want to do is make sure that you've got good ventilation. Because not only will it burn your skin, it's caustic, but the vapors inhale, will hurt your lungs. And going into the lungs and it can move into the bloodstream so it can cause all the impacts of problems. That said, there's some precautions that you have to take. So, you have to be safe. I wear respirators if you're in a clothes, but I'm... Because I'm in a garage, I can open my door, I can blow the vapors out of the garage. But you still need to be cautious. If you're inside and you don't have adequate ventilation, you need a respirator. If you don't wear glasses, you need safety glasses. You need to cover your skin. You know, no short pants, long sleeve shirts, I'll be donning rubber gloves. And you have to be careful that you don't splash it. So, basic precautions, it is a caustic material, it is pretty powerful. But it gets the job done and that's really what it's all about. Okay, let's talk about some materials that you'll need to accomplish this. You'll need a heat gun if you're going to go that route. Again, I'll show you how to use that. With a heat gun, you don't necessarily need rubber gloves, but you do want a pair of gloves. Because, by the way, a heat gun, you know, operates between 41200 degrees Fahrenheit. So, it gets pretty hot and it can cause some damage. Also, the vapors from a heat gun are toxic because it's coming up, it'll be, it'll be bubbling up the paint, which will create vapors. Especially if the paint is lead base, which was used, you know, in early times. So, a lot of your projects might have that. You'll need a chemical stripper. There's three types of chemical strippers. And let's talk a little bit about that. And there's a caustic base stripper, which is made primarily from LIE. That's used mainly for outside solution, for situations. I prefer not to use it on wood projects. One of the problems with LIE is LIE basically is in the mildest form it's used for soap and so. And it's in its most severe form. It's used as a drain cleaner and it's also used for dead animals on a highway. And they're soaked in a solution of light to disintegrate the carcass. So, pretty powerful stuff. But the one bad thing about using it on furniture is it discolors the wood. So, a lot of times after you use a LIE base product on a piece of furniture, you have to go ahead and bleach it to lighten the wood back up. So, I prefer not to use a LIE base product. There is the eco-friendly products, which are made from plants, citrus, and all kinds of things. Keep in mind, these do also have chemicals in them. So, they're not hazard-free by themselves, but they're a little more bio-friendly. The problem with them is they're very slow to work. And stripper works. Once you put a stripper down, it stays wet. And the wet layer actually causes the chemical reaction. Once air gets in there, it breaks the chemical reaction. So, bio-friendly strippers are very slow and they tend to dry out. So, what you have to do is you have to wrap them in cellophane or wax paper so that they don't dry out. And then, usually, the process is an overnight process and you come back and accept it. That's a little bit beyond my preference. So, I go with a solvent-based stripper. Solvent-based strippers are methyl chloride and they are caustic. They're toxic. So, you need to be a little bit careful with it, but it's the quickest and I think the best to use for this type of project. With that type of stripper, rubber gloves are necessary. Again, it'll burn your skin. If you need an applicator, I just like very cheap inexpensive brushes. I'm a big tool guy, so this is when I use cheap brushes. I don't use cheap brushes very often. You should have some stuff for removal. Scrappers are preferred on the big flat surfaces that will work well. Some kind of a stiff bristle brush for doing the hard to get to spots. Also, maybe a scrubby, like a synthetic scrub pad will do it. Steel wool will work too. I don't like steel wool on metal because it has a tendency to rust and the metal will rust. I classically don't use steel wool. A glass container, the problem with plastic containers is a lot of times some of the stronger strippers will eat right through the plastic. You want a glass container so we're loading up for pouring your stripper in and loading up your brush. When it comes off, you'll need a waste container. I just take an old garbage can and take a garbage can bag. I'm going to use that for my waste container. You want a little dish of some sort so that when you're scraping off the paint, it has a place to go. That's kind of the process there. I just take a piece of old glass. It doesn't have to be anything that's got a flat edge to it so that you can put it up. Put it on and then push it off. That's kind of what you're going to need to get started. I showed you the fan earlier. You want to keep air flowing and you want to keep fresh air moving. You want to keep the fumes away from you. So you want to blow them out. Otherwise, make sure you have a good quality respirator. Not one of those little drywall masks and dust masks. It has to be a respirator that stops vapors. If you don't wear glasses, definitely you need to have safety glasses. That's it. We're going to get... I'm going to clean this up. We're going to get going here. Here we go. Let's make this as easy on yourself as possible. If your parts are disassembled, let's do it. Any screws or bolts that can piece it. They'll be much easier on you in the long run. There's two ways you can remove paint or varnish. You can sand it off or you can melt it off. Sanding is tedious. Takes a long time. And gets expensive because you go through a lot of paper. It's also real hard to get all the film out of small and tight areas. So I prefer to melt it off. Melting it, there's two ways you can melt it off. You can use heat, high heat. I'm demonstrating a heat gun here. It's not my preferred method, but it does work. Heat guns are slow and tedious. This little strip that I'm doing here is about three inches wide by 48 inches. It took me about six and a half minutes to use the heat gun to get it off. For this one side, it would be almost an hour. And for the detailed side, it would be improbable. People like heat guns because they think they're eco-friendly. There's no chemicals. However, keep in mind that heat guns operate between 412-100 degrees Fahrenheit. So they do produce fumes. And the fumes are toxic. So you still have to use the same precautions. You still have to have air blowing across it or a respirator if you're in an enclosed area. I'm in my garage. It's rainy outside. I can't be outside. But I have the door open and the fan going. So this is why I'm doing it this way. Again, this is not my preferred method. If you're going to use a chemical stripper, manufacturers recommend that it be above 50 degrees here. You can see it's around 62 degrees. I am able to move outside. Make sure you shake up. I use a paste-based stripper. So make sure it's shaken very well. When you apply the stripper, do it in generous coats. Apply it thick. Do it in one direction. And do it like you're icing a cake. The stripper I'm using is a semi-paste stripper. I like the semi-paste because the paste keeps it from evaporating. So the manufacturer will tell you how much time to leave. Usually around 15 to 20 minutes. I recommend that you leave the area so you're not inhaling any unnecessary fumes when you come back. Or during that time. Notice that the old finish is bubbling. Here I'm doing a test. I want to see if it comes off. And it's coming off pretty easy. I'm not putting any pressure. I'm just gently sliding the scraper across the top of the countertop. I'm to a plate and then I can throw it away. Dispose of it in a waist basket. It's going to take a couple coats. It doesn't happen in one coat. Very seldom can you ever get paint off in one coat. So again, when you apply it, I'm putting it on thick one direction. Kind of like I see your cake. Lay it down and then let the stripper do the work. There isn't a lot of effort that's applied. Once it's applied, leave it alone. Stripper works by forming an airtight layer between the stripper and the surface of the film. Disturbing it airtight layer is counterproductive. It defeats the purpose. It's not played with it once it's done. Once it's down. There are both semi-paced and then liquid strippers. Both have their place, but I prefer semi-paced. Liquid runs and liquid dries out or evaporates faster. And again, stripper works when it's in contact with the surface wet. So we want semi-paced does a little better. Again, here I'm using it on the side. With a liquid stripper, this would be running. It wouldn't be holding. It wouldn't be sticking. There's all kinds of carved surfaces and then dense along the side of this project. So here we go. Final coat. Again, old projects. Remember there's paint and then there's usually varnish underneath. So I'm actually laying down a third coat here. I'm going to make sure that not only the paint, but all the varnish is off of it. So now here we go. We're laying it down. And now you can see it's pretty much coming down to bear wood. There's a few paint spots. I'm not going to worry about those at this time because what I'm going to do is I'm going to sand those off because it will require some sanding. Once the stripper is done and once you're done, you really do have to get the gunk off. There will be paint particles. There will be some wax. What will happen is your stain won't absorb or your top coat, your clear coat, won't adhere if there's all that gunk and waxy buildup. So it needs to be taken down. You can clean it off with either mineral spirits or lacquer thinner. I'm using lacquer thinner. Lacquer thinner is probably about 10 times more potent and paint thinner. It works really well. And if you'll notice, I'm rubbing it in pretty well too because I want to get as much of that off as I can so that I don't have to sand that much. Sanding in the end doesn't have to be heavy as long as you haven't done a lot of damage. Create a gouges and scratches in the top of your surface. Wipe it down good. Get it good and cleaned off. Then we'll go on to this part, which is the part that I am not looking forward to. You can notice all the carvings where I'm working right now. And then notice all the raised parts of it. There's all kinds of fancy detail work on this cabinet. So what I'm going to do here, my theory is let's lay it down some extra thick layers of stripper. We'll really let the stripper do the work. Try to get it all the little crevices. Make sure that it's going deep into the carvings and the etchings. And we're going to try to let the stripper do the work. When I come back after it's soaked in, I'm going to come back. And I'll show you here in just a second. I'm doing a great job here for the detail. So I'm going to come back now with a scraper. I'm going to scrape as much of the flat surfaces as I can. Try to get rid of that. But you'll see here you can see that over the carvings that the scraper isn't working and the round areas of scraper isn't working. So I purchased for $1.99. I purchased a stiff bristle scrub brush. And this is really doing the trick. It's actually turned out to be one of the better tools that I have. But again, it isn't going to happen in one coat. This may take three or four coats. But again, patience is a virtue at this time. So just keep working. And I don't know if you can see, but it's pretty fast. But I'm using a dental probe as well. Because the paint gets deep into those carvings. And it's just real hard to get it out. So I'm kind of using that. You'll also notice every once in a while I use an air compressor. It's okay to use an air compressor as long as the as long as the stripper isn't wet. You never want to use an air compressor on wet stripper because there's a chance that it can blow up in your face and your eyes and under your glasses and all that other stuff. So very liberal, very generous layers of strippers applied. And just kind of keep working it. Eventually it all comes off. And you'll have a nice finished project. So it all turned out pretty good. I'm real happy with the results. Took me a little while. Took me about 15 hours to do it. But the reason is is because it was all the detail work. This is all hand carved along here. All the carvings and the etchings in here. All the raised pieces. So there was a lot of detail. I actually used a dental probe to get into here. So that was the reason. But I'm happy with it. It turned out real well. Again, I probably wouldn't have done this. I'm a woodworker. I prefer to just make my own projects and start from there. And I don't have to do the messy part of doing the stripping and everything else. But this is step one infertile refinishing. And it certainly saves a lot of money. And it certainly is a good thing to do if you have a nice piece. Work the time and effort. So it turned out to be walnut, which is really a beautiful wood. The next step will be sanding. What I'm going to do is there are a few paint spots here. So they'll need to be standing it out. I'm going to start with 120 grit. And I'll go up to 180. I may stop there. I may go to 220. It just depends on how it turns out. I'd probably not going to polyurethane this one. I'm probably going to oil it simply because of all the carvings. One of the things that polyurethane does is it tends to go on a little thicker. Even though my technique is to thin it. Make sure you watch that video. If you're going to click when you clear-code your project. That's really important because a lot of people ruin the project when it gets to polyurethane. Because it just comes out sort of thick. I'll show you how to thin it. I'll show you how to apply it properly. But in any case, polyurethane, even though it's thin, is still thick. I think to show this off, I think it's better with an oil. I think a little bit of oil will lay a little flatter. It won't fill in all the indentations as much. I'm probably going to do that. My next video is going to be on sanding. So make sure you subscribe. Oh, by the way, my website is Paul's DIY Solutions. Dot Solutions. I'm sorry, Paul's DIY. Dot Solutions. Not dot com. It's dot solutions with a plural. Make sure you go there. There's a written description of the whole procedure that I just did. As well as applying polyurethane, applying stain properly. And each of those has a two-page summary sheet that's in a PDF format. So you can download it and print it. And you can download and print it. And that way you can have it with you while you're doing your work. So check it out. Make sure you subscribe. I hope you learned a lot. That's it for this phase. The next phase again is sanding. I'm going to produce a video on that. But that probably won't be out in time for you guys. But it'll be there for the future. So I hope you enjoyed it. Hope you learned a lot. Please leave comments. I'm more than happy to answer your questions. And I'm pretty good about responding.