How to Remove Paint from Metal and Wood

Paint strippers are the usual means of removing paint from surfaces such as wood, metal, brick, masonry e.g. cars, bikes, radiators, doors, skirting boards.

There are many different types of paint stripper available on the market today, and in general they can be divided into water based strippers and strippers based on some kind of solvent.

No matter how fond you may have grown of your existing paint colours and finish's, there comes a time when they have to be removed and replaced. Your car or bike may have been damaged, your doors may be scratched, your radiators chipped, or someone may have sprayed graffiti over your garden wall. Whatever the reason, if you want things to have that “look like new” appearance, you really do have to remove all the old paint before applying new.

Stripping paint, although not a difficult job, can present some challenges. Generally, paint is more difficult to strip the older it is and the greater the number of coats are present. The older and thicker the paint, the longer it will take the paint stripper to remove the paint. Paint type also affects ease of
stripping. Traditional solvent based strippers, although very effective on solvent-based paints, are often pretty much useless on modern water based paints and emulsions and also on many epoxy type paints. Water based strippers tend to be more versatile and able to strip most paint types, including old lead based paints and things like textured paints, which solvent based strippers often
find difficult to remove. Legislation within the EU has also greatly restricted the type of paint stripper that can be purchased.

Modern water based strippers are easy to use and do not present the Health and Safety issues of traditional solvent strippers. They will strip a wide variety of paint types, and are particularly effective on modern water based paints, textured paints, artex and epoxy type paints. These strippers come in a
variety of forms, some are thick and sticky, so they can be easily brushed on to vertical surfaces such as doors, bike frames etc. without running off, and some have much lower viscosities to allow their use in dip tanks if large numbers of parts need stripping. Water based paint strippers are also easy to spray as they do not contain harmful solvents. This makes them particularly useful for
stripping very large areas of paint, as they can be applied quickly and efficiently through a spray gun.

Using water based strippers is easy – simply brush onto the paint to be removed, allow the stripper to penetrate the paint and lift it from the surface in the form of bubbles, and then just brush, wipe or hose off the loosened paint. If the paint is very thick, and especially if there are multiple coats to be removed,  more than one application of stripper may be necessary. After the paint has been
removed, the underlying surface will need washing to remove any residual stripper before application of new paint.

Water based artex and textured paint removers work on the principle of softening the artex rather than causing it to bubble. This is because artex manufactured up until the early 1990's often contained asbestos, which can be very dangerous if inhaled. Artex removers convert the artex or textured paint to a gel which can be easily scraped off the underlying surface. The gel locks in any
asbestos and prevents its inhalation during removal.

Modern water based strippers are very safe to use on almost any surface, including any type of metal, many plastics and sensitive surfaces such as tiles, marble and wooden furniture,  although  it is always safest to test the stripper on a small area first, just in case there may be a problem. Water based strippers do not in general attack the paint itself, and they also tend to be much more biodegradable than solvent based strippers. This makes getting rid of all the paint that has been removed normally as simple as just throwing it in the bin!


www.biostrip.co.uk