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the builders are in so I have been going back to the house after work to strip the staircase of the ghastly dark varnish that the previous owner applied so as to take back to pine.
I started with nitromorse which stinks and not that effective.
a lot of it flaked off with the scraper...is this safe ?
I could strip it with the electric or gas burner but again it gives off nasty fumes...not safe !
stick with scraping and nitro ?
any ideas !??!?
have you tried wickes own brand paint/varnish stripper ?
its as good as nitromorse without that horrendous smell.
not as yet but will give it a go
Couldn't find it anywhere else but this is an effective tool
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00002N9E2
I've stripped a staircase with this, nothing else would touch it. Open a window for ventilation. Keep on applying it and it softens the paint, use a shave hook and coarse steel wool.
Depending on the thickness of the paint/varnish, heat and scrape as much you can off first before using the paint stripper.
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Last fall, I stripped and refinished my front (exterior) door and sidelights which were varnished. In the past, I have used paint stripper with methylene chloride; it is very effective but is dangerous to breathe and burns your skin.
This time I used [url= http://www.wmbarr.com/citristrip/default.aspx ]Citristrip[/url] and was shocked at how well it worked. At most, it took two coats on an area. I used a plastic putty knife as a scraper along with scotchbrite pads. The clear afterwash got rid of any remaining residue. In the future, I'll always try the citrus type of product and will only use something stronger if the citrus stripper doesn't work.