Silent Paint Remover
April 4th, 2007
Today, the Man In Brown showed up, and dropped off some boxes.
They were for my wife. Damn!
Then he came back! And brought a box for me. Inside the box there was some flavorless edible packing peanuts (they dissolved amazingly quickly in your mouth) protecting a Silent Paint Remover.
This thing rocks!
I live in an 82-year-old house, which means it’s seen 82-years worth of styles come and go. That’s a lot of paint. Our shoe molding is all rounded over due to the many layers of lead, latex and who knows what else.
Point it at the shoe molding for 60 seconds and then give a good scrape. Truly amazing.
While the heating device itself is silent, the squeals coming from the scraper as 82 years of sea-foam green, buttermilk, white and teal come peeling off the wall are reminiscent of dragging a pair of cats across a chalkboard.
From reading online, the amazingness of the product made me suspect there was a high probability it could be a RonCo-esque product and a waste of money. Though, it probably can be used to cook a turkey nicely.
But then I found this guy, who explained the science and even provided a how-to about making one for yourself. I promptly set out to find the required space-heater of the appropriate type.
I quickly learned that asking the Helpful Friendly People at Lowe’s and Home Depot for space-heaters while you are wearing shorts and a t-shirt is a fantastic way to survey how different people express “what kind of nut are you?” with only their eyebrows.
Apparently space-heaters are a seasonal item, and April isn’t the season for them.
Due to the lack of parts to build my own, I punted and just bought the pre-made version. Tonight, with minimal effort, I stripped 8′ of base boards in about a half hour. Without any chemical burns or heavy metal poisoning.
I’d consider that a success.
April 5th, 2007 at 8:14 am
Awesome. Our house is a little of 100 years old, and really needs to have various bits stripped. I’ve thought of one of these infrared-based strippers after seeing them on some home renovation shows. Good to know that they seem to work as advertised. :)
April 30th, 2007 at 8:03 pm
I googled the silent paint remover and selected blogs your one came up first. i am so excited about this product but just want to make sure that it acutally does what It says it should. i’m glad you have had success and I’ll be sending my order for one shortly.
Yvette, New Jersey
July 4th, 2007 at 2:08 pm
hi there - we’ve got an 87-year-old place with painted trim all over. my question is this: did you strip your baseboards in place, or did you remove them first?
we’ve (successfully) removed all of the baseboards upstairs as we are installing a new floor and tearing down some useless drywall. but we’d like to avoid removing the door trim and would prefer to strip it in place.
thanks.
August 3rd, 2008 at 8:22 am
I GUESS I’M MISSING SOMETHING HERE. I HAVE THE ENTIRE SILENT PAINT REMOVER KIT AT A COST OF A LITTLE UNDER $2,400.00. AFTER 3 DAYS OF TRYING TO STRIP A 6′ X 7′ DOOR JAM, BURNT WOOD, SPRAYING WATER, COATING SURFACE WITH LINCEED OIL FIRST THEN HEAT, I HAVE MANAGED TO REMOVE ONLY 60% OF OLD PAINT. THIS TOOL IS A JOKE! OR I’M DOING SOMETHING WRONG. I HAVE A 1600 SQ. FT. LAP SIDING, 80 YEAR OLD HOME TO STRIP. AFTER 7DAYS OF USING THIS SYSTEM, I GUSESS IT WILL TAKE ME ABOUT 3 YEARS TO REMOVE THE OLD LEAD AND LATEX PAINT. HOW DID YOU DO IT?