Removing paint from stone!

[Meg]

We have a Charente stone fireplace which has been painted a number of times.  (....from bright red to bright blue...[+o(]..) And i want to get back to the stone, but without damaging it too much. Scraping etc may leave too many marks on the stone as it's so soft, not sure what damage evil chemicals would cause & I'm half tempted to get a blow torch on it. [blink]

Any ideas?

[Meg]

Here's one i didn't do earlier. But what it should look like

[IMG]http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g65/louweezel/IMG_6387.jpg[/IMG]

And here is the painted version. (I had to paint it white as i couldn't live with the bright blue!)

[IMG]http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g65/louweezel/IMG_6389.jpg[/IMG]

[Gluestick]

Meg:

An economical way to strip large quantities of paint is to make a strong solution of Caustic Soda (remembering to add the soda cystals to the water rather than water to soda crystals, as a rapid exothermic reaction creates lots of heat and it spits! Wear, of course, protective goggles and gloves).

Then make a basic flour and water paste stirring flour mixed smooth into hot water.

Allow both to cool.

Mix together and voila ! A wonderful thixatropic paint stripper!

Try it out firstly on a concealed bit of the stone to ensure no reaction occurs.

This is what I used to use for stripping 75 coats of heavy old oil bound paint from Victorian cast iron fireplaces with all their wonderful complex mouldings.

Lots of useful info here:

[JayJay]

Hi Megs,[:D] there's also a prep called Peel Away that is good. It's a paste you put on & it breaks down the paint & absorbs it. You then just peel away, funnily enough! A cleanish solution. Just be careful of fumes with whatever you come up with though.

Edit: Just had a Google! http://www.decoratingdirect.co.uk/viewprod/s/STRKS/

[nectarine]

ours was painted a particularly vile and very loud shade of orange and was very difficult to remove .... we think there was some glue mixed in with it.  We tried various chemicals but ended up with a sticky mess. In the end we bought little hammers, like the sort that geologists have, and tap-tap-tapped away at the stone and the paint flaked cleanly off to expose the lovely stone underneath, with no residue.  Each flake was about 1/8 or 1/4 inch square so it was very long and arduous work.  However, we didn't have a television in those days and so, with the radio on, we sat at opposite sides of the fireplace and chipped away, stopping occasionally to take a swig of wine to help things along.  One hour a night, every night ....  It tooks months - actually, as it was a holiday home and we weren't there all the time, it actually took years - but in the end we had a lovely stone fireplace to look at.  Oh, and then we sold the house (the fireplace was a particular selling point) so the effort paid off in the end.

[Gluestick]

That's the way used to clean back castings, such as machine tools, post boxes and years ago, the old Post Office Telephones big red 'phone boxes, nectarine.

The only problem with stone, is if it is soft, the surface finishes up looking as if it's been pecked to death by a mentally retarded woodpecker!

The only reason I know this, is that many years ago, an ex partner's father was a painter and decorator and his form had the Post Office contract for maintaining all the 'phone boxes and pillar boxes in our County town. There were hundreds and hundreds!

And one fine day, I was roped in to help with siting a new double (the old oval ones) pillar box. Like icebergs, there seems far more underneath than on top!

I still remember the almost hernias!

 

[Richard & Tracy]

Be careful if you use chemicals. Most natural stone is acid sensitive and liable to be damaged by acidic chemicals. Ideally you want a neutral ph one.

[Gluestick]

Caustic soda of course being alkaline.

Plus considerable advice on the web ref provided, about testing the stone to see what type it is.

[Meg]

Thanks folks! Seems like the chemical route. I shall look into it all.

Great link gluey. Ta!

[:)]

[Gluestick]

Meg:

One important point I forgot! (It was Friday!).

Don't use normal paintbrushes to apply caustic paint stripper: it will eat the bristles in no time flat.

I use a plastic kitchen brush with nylon bristles: which is great for agitating the paint into crevices too.