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My uncle showed me a trick with a paint scraper that saved my weekend
He was helping me strip old varnish off a dresser and said, 'Heat it with a hair dryer for 30 seconds first, the gunk just slides off.' I tried it and it cut the work time in half. Anyone have other ways to deal with stubborn finishes?
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joseph5297mo ago
Honestly I've had the opposite happen with heat. It made the old varnish gummy and spread it around worse, like it just melted into the wood grain. I mean maybe it depends on the exact finish, but it created a bigger mess for me to clean up. I've had way better luck just using the right chemical stripper and taking my time with it.
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leehernandez6mo ago
Yeah, that tracks. Heat can totally backfire on some of the older, weird shellac mixes. You end up just cooking it deeper into the pores. A good paste stripper is slow, but at least it lifts the gunk out instead of pushing it in.
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