I used the paper with Peel Away 6 and left it over night. Today I lifted the paper and it was almost dry. A lot of the varnish came off with the paper but there was still a good deal left on the wood. It is slimey-pasty. It’s hard to get off. Peel Away 6 says it contains no water and doesn’t raise the grain of the wood. But you are suppose to use a damp cloth or sponge to clean off the left over residue. It took a lot of water to clean it off and it did raise the grain because of it. I also tried spritzing it with vinegar water. It helped a little. I tried the damp sponge mixed with a little ammonia and that worked a little better than the vinegar, I thought.
I have used the very strong strippers and the Peel Away 6 is just as much work, in my opinion. But it has such a great advantage in the fact that it is safe and doesn’t hurt your hands. I love that part! I used to get light headed working with the other stripper. This one has almost no smell and I feel safe using it around the animals.
I have a little left to do on the big picture window. I’m going to try mineral spirits as a clean up and I’ll try denatured alcohol if that doesn’t work. Alcohol may be the best since I’m taking off what seems to be shellac covered by a varnish. Once the top layer of varnish is gone the shellac should readily dissolves with alcohol. I was hoping I wouldn’t need to use anything stronger than water. It looks like there is no “magic” way to strip wood.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Patricia in Jackson // May 3, 2007 at 6:24 am
Denautred alcohol. This is what I used to clean off the PA 7 and it worked like a charm, it won’t raise the grain and it cleans up the residue well.
PA 7 was great, it was easy on the hands, not caustic, didn’t discolor wood, and I learned to really appreciate that after I melted a hole in my finger with PA 1.
You can try the tin foil on a very small section, it really did work well and kept the stripper wet so that it could work.
2 linda // May 3, 2007 at 7:28 am
Patricia, thanks for the tips. I looked up Peel Away 7. It says it is for architectural paint removal. Removes latex and oil based paint. It doesn’t say it is for varnishes like Peel Away 6 does. I wonder if there is a difference or just a different label to get you to buy the stuff. I’ll use the alcohol for clean up today. I’m not going to let it sit so long this time and see how easy it is. I think I left it on too long yesterday. I’ve thought of using wax paper but the Peel Away paper was pretty cheap. Still, it is a lot of work. But what a difference it will make to have a nice finish around the window when I’m done.
3 linda // May 3, 2007 at 6:08 pm
I didn’t leave the paper on as long today and it came off pretty good this time. Still left dissolved residue. I tried denatured alcohol and it took it right off. I don’t like using the solvents but sometimes you have to in order to get stuff done. I’m pretty happy about using Peel Away 6 now that I can get the residue off pretty easily with alcohol.
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