stripping, paint stripping from banister, is there a easy way.

stolt

Our current staircase is all painted my wife wants to sand down the handrail and stain it so it. My my early days stripping paint with a gun was a total nightmare and liquid/paste stripper wasnt any easier. I dont know how much it wold cost to get someone in to put a new banister in to save the hassle or perhaps theres a new product on the scene. Easy and maybe cleaner too....

lisal0u

Hiya,

We have recently stripped our original pine 1938 staircase and it was a total nightmare! There was 70 years of varnish and paint to remove!

We tried a heat gun which was rubbish and also cheap paint strippers, also rubbish! The best thing we found was nitromors! Absolutly horrible stuff but worked a treat!

It probably took us a couple of months of hard work to get it done including the sanding! I highly reccomend getting a mini electric sander, saves a whole lot of work! If its only the bannister though it might not be so bad!

One thing we have found is that it doesnt stain so well. All the imperfections in the wood come out and also parts of the wood just wont stain for some reason. It does look lovely now its nearly done but I think in hindsight it would have been a lot easier to fit a new one!

Lisa

stolt

thanks, 70 years... eeek. The house is only 10 years old so in that time i might be lucky only to have a couple of coats on it. Its the little nook and cranies that will be a nightmare (me, i wouldnt touch it but the wife said she would give it a go)

lisal0u

Ah that wont be so bad then!

You can paint on the nitromors and use these handly little scraping tools that B&Q and wickes etc sell to scrape paint out of the nooks and crannies! It does make a mess though so you would need to cover everything up well! Nitromors melts everything in sight including skin! ouch!

tandraig

second that - nitromors is great - only took me a week to do ours working couple hours a day. the only prob was when i finished - the wood was awful - i had to stain it darker than i wanted to and now i have ended up repainting it white!!! my house is 30 years old and i did the banisters about 15 years ago. i would do one whole section at a time and then see how it takes stain and how it looks before doing whole lot! oh - and nitromors i have discovered is like sniffing glue - thats why i did a couple of hours at a time - had to leave every door and window in house open!!! even then i got headaches.

LTJ

I agree with the posts above, Nitromors is the best, but you need plenty of fresh air ventilation, do a bit at a time, its pretty nasty stuff, good quality rubber gloves, don't use the cheap ones where you get 100 in a box they are too thin and will burn right through. I found wire wool best after you have taken most of it off.
You will also need plenty of Turps to kill off the Niromors, this I have found better than water washable, I have found it will take the stain better, but it dose depend on the wood. Again good ventilatiion is required, especially in such a confind space as the staircase.

wallbash

Has anyone priced up new spindles ?

Not thinking of changing the handrail/bannister or the newel posts
But if you removed the spindles would make the rest of the job really easy


Plan B instead of replacing spindles , when removed strip and replace!

Not a money saver but a great time saver and you would make a better job.

Ps from this post you can see I'm a better carpenter than a painter.

timmmers

A little wire wheel on a Dremel or drill will do the crannies ..just be gentle and preferably use a brass one, a cut down toothbrush handle is pretty good too depending on the shapes.

t

ormus

most of you lot sounder braver than me. id only ever use nitromors in an empty house.

id always use a heat gun and hard work with the sanding papers. it takes time sure, but gives a great finish, ready for any stain etc you want to use.

angelavdavis

LTJ wrote: »

You will also need plenty of Turps to kill off the Niromors, this I have found better than water washable, I have found it will take the stain better, but it dose depend on the wood.

Will second using turps instead of water. The water opens up the grain - hence the experiences described where the wood didn't taking the stain very well.

Was so pleased when I moved into my current house where the doors and bannisters had already been stripped!

TomsMom

If you want to use Nitromors, get a 28 day respirator mask to wear.

Our builders used Nitromors but we weren't living in the house at the time and they were working with all doors etc open. OH did another job using a strong chemical and the 28 day respirator worked fine.