Has anyone stripped paint from a painted reflector and if so what did they use please? I found some advice that mentioned if using a liquid paint stripper then to test a small area first to make sure the enamel underneath didn’t dull? Would a heat gun/hot air type paint stripper work if used carefully? all suggestions welcome! thanks in advance, pb
Try boiling in a pot of water. Depending on the paint used a simple boil will often loosen paint. If that doesn't help then you can move on to other, more aggressive methods.
Hi Reese, Thanks, I will try that out! It’s a strange shape and quite large but I’m sure I can get parts of it in a pan or failing that my cousin has a wallpaper steamer.. I might try and adapt that/ take the wall steamer part off and direct the hose at parts that won’t go in the pot! Sounds like I have hours of fun ahead I’ll let you know my findings cheers pb
I own a professional refinishing business. Use Methelne Chloride paste stripper. This can no longer be purchased by home owners in the USA due to goverment regulations of the Obama administraion. Place the stripper onto the paint and it will bubble and come loose. Wash afterwards w/ lacquer thinner. This type of paste stripper will not damage the enamel on the reflector. (Enamel is glass bondeded by heat to the metal. ) Methelene Chloride is heavy choose the can by weight if you have a choice as this means more of the active ingreadient. Best, Brian
As Brian mentioned. I've stripped paint off an enamelled hood using a methylene chloride-based stripper. It is still available in my location. It won't harm the vitreous enamel. Anyhow, if you have difficulties finding methylene chloride, then you can still use whatever paint strippers available. Most, perhaps all the available ones won't harm the porcelain-enamel. Just make sure they don't contain any kind of acids. Or,..if the paint can be easily removed just by using organic solvents, then acetone, lacquer thinners, etc might work as well. None of them would harm the enamel.
Thanks @MYN if the boiling doesn’t work I will give it a go.. there may be areas that I can’t get to so perhaps a combination of the two regards pb
I was still buying "Starchem Synstrip" until recently - but now it is only for use in industrial settings. You can buy it online if you agree to conform to the regulations. However the price is now about £50 for 5 liters. As it is commercial that is the smallest size it comes in. I used it on several very intricate cast iron fireplaces that had had a century of paint on them. It is the only decent paintsripper I have bought in the last decade.
Caution: Yes, Starchem paint stripper contains a high percentage(>90%) of methylene chloride. It is industrial grade and certainly one of most effective in existence. However, it also contains some formic and acetic acids to increase its effectiveness. Formic acid is pretty strong and had long been used as one of the constituents in some aircraft paint strippers by the military. US defence for example. The acids might attack the enamel if in contact with it for an appreciable period of time.
A new paint stripper product is now used in commercial applications in the market. The product is Dumond Smart Strip. It is s pattented product made in US. It is extreamly expensive! It relies on the use of pads covering the wet stripper. They advertise that many layers of paint can be removed at one time without damage to the underlying wood, metal, stone. It was just used to remove the paint from the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The manufacturer does not really give much information on what it is. My guess is it may be some form of Costic Lye soda? This was what was used prior to Methelene Chloried. It went out of use when furniutre refinishing companies dipped furniture into liquid baths of Costic Lye Soda. This caused the wood to turn silver gray and glue joints to fail & wood to split. Damage from CLS caused the entire industry to move to Methelene Chloride. Now we see mostly Citric Acid based strippers, so your trying to remove paint w/ Lemon Juice/ Grapfruit Juice....
The main solvent in Dumond Smart Strip is benzyl alcohol, in addition to water and some viscosity modifiers or thickeners. It is not likely to contain caustic soda. Although caustic soda is hazardous, it is not a banned item. You can still find them in many products. Methylene chloride, on the other hand, has been removed from most commercial or common paint strippers in many countries for reasons which I would not elaborate here. If you were to check in detail, the basic make-up of all the existing organic paint or coating compositions and their chemical resistance or compatibilities, you'd eventually find that virtually none of them, (including the toughest epoxies, vinyl, acrylic and polyurethane, etc) are resistant to methylene chloride. The same goes for all elastomeric/rubber materials including the most resistant Viton, Kalrez and EDPM. There has been a lot of work and research done in the industries and military to find suitable substitutes for methylene chloride for use in paint strippers. A number of them are actually coming pretty close in performance but less nasty in nature.
