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I'm trying to remove the paint from our kitchen cabinets. I've stripped paint before and don't remember it being rocket science. However, I have applied the stripper a few times now. Nothing is really happening. A very small bit is bubbling. In these spots, the paint is coming right off, but the rest of the paint is hard as a rock I've tried laying it on thicker and waiting longer. Still nothing. I know some paint "bubbles" differently than others, but I feel like something should be happening. Any advice? Thank you!
The best advice is give up on that losing cause. What is your time worth? How much does your boss pay you per hour? Do you really have 10 hours ore more per cabinet to spare? Knowing that your hourly worth times 10 hours per box means you can buy a whole new kitchen if purchased properly?
Dont just call a $25 can of paint your cost and a successful remodel job because it aint. Painting cabinets is not remodeling a kitchen despite what a Realtor might spout out. Why the hell would anyone want to sand and strip a door and drawer face with all those nooks and crannies and grooves? I think I would rather get 10 root canals tonight instead. You can buy a damn cabinet door brand new and raw in any wood species you desire and choose from perhaps 200 door styles for anywhere from $15 to $60 each. You can buy Blum or Grass hinges from a cabinet supply house for 99 cents each or go to Home Depot or Lowes and pay $4 each for the same thing.
Now... the face, sides and toe kick. Go out and buy yourself sheets of one eighth thick plywood skin (not veneer) I mean plywood one eigth thick. You will lay it over the face with the proper glue. Now you use an edge trimmer bit in your trimmer router, plunge it into the door and drawer openings and just cut the door openings out. Order your new doors and drawer faces exactly one inch bigger then the opening which is a half inch in every direction. You call this your overlay. You will have to buy a 32MM forstner bit to cut out the holes in your new doors for the hinges.
Next you do the same on the sides and toe kicks. You just use the same router trimmer bit to do all the edges. Now you have an entire brand new clean raw wood cabinet face that you can stain to any color your little heart desires.
Whatever it is you are trying to strip there, who knows what's under neith all that ugly paint that never should have been there in the first place? You likely have plywood cabinets and if you sand plywood you will sand right through the finish ply. Then you can not even stain it and can only paint it. If you have to paint it then why bother stripping at all? Just scuff the things and paint over it. But nothing and I mean nothing on earth is more grotesque then painted cabinets. Especially oak cabinets that are painted with all that grain peeking through the paint.
Different paints and wood and conditions strip differently.
Try different chemicals.
Jasco works great, but do not get it on your skin or eyes.
Citrus Strip works very well on some paints and woods and it is non caustic.
Peel Away works well sometimes and not at all on other surfaces.
There is a stripper called "Dad's" It is very strong and very casustic. It works great on some paints, but it will eat right through your skin pretty quickly. Use it with extreme caution.
There is another stripper that sometimes works well and it is so gentle that you can literally apply it with your hands. I will look at the name of it when I get home.
Most of the so called gentle stripper chemicals do not work at all.
Heat guns or similar tools work extremely well on many kinds of paint. They expeciually work well on paint that is painted over varnish or shellac. It takes a while to get the knack of it. Experiment on the back side for a while so you do not burn the wood on the front of the cabinet.
No matter which method you use, you will end up by sanding. You cna also sand fromt he beginning, but it is very difficult and time consuming to do. You will have to change sand paper constantly becuase it fills up with paint.
You can take the cabinet faces to a furniture store and have them dipped. They will come back completely free of paint. However any glue will also dissolve so they may need to be re-glued.
Some types of paint (Calcimine) simply cannot be rmeoved. Sometimes the paint soaks into the woodgrain and you will nto get it off without sanding away all of the surface grain. That simply is not worth it. In that case, you are pretty much stuck repainting or replacing. If the cabinets are historic, and you do not want to just paint them, then you may need to go to an architecural salvage place and get new cabinets that can be stripped.
If these are just typical modern chintzy junk, then just replace them. If they are not hisoric or fine hardwood, it is simply not worth the effort.
Different paints and wood and conditions strip differently.
Try different chemicals.
Jasco works great, but do not get it on your skin or eyes.
Citrus Strip works very well on some paints and woods and it is non caustic.
Peel Away works well sometimes and not at all on other surfaces.
There is a stripper called "Dad's" It is very strong and very casustic. It works great on some paints, but it will eat right through your skin pretty quickly. Use it with extreme caution.
There is another stripper that sometimes works well and it is so gentle that you can literally apply it with your hands. I will look at the name of it when I get home.
Most of the so called gentle stripper chemicals do not work at all.
Heat guns or similar tools work extremely well on many kinds of paint. They expeciually work well on paint that is painted over varnish or shellac. It takes a while to get the knack of it. Experiment on the back side for a while so you do not burn the wood on the front of the cabinet.
No matter which method you use, you will end up by sanding. You cna also sand fromt he beginning, but it is very difficult and time consuming to do. You will have to change sand paper constantly becuase it fills up with paint.
You can take the cabinet faces to a furniture store and have them dipped. They will come back completely free of paint. However any glue will also dissolve so they may need to be re-glued.
Some types of paint (Calcimine) simply cannot be rmeoved. Sometimes the paint soaks into the woodgrain and you will nto get it off without sanding away all of the surface grain. That simply is not worth it. In that case, you are pretty much stuck repainting or replacing. If the cabinets are historic, and you do not want to just paint them, then you may need to go to an architecural salvage place and get new cabinets that can be stripped.
If these are just typical modern chintzy junk, then just replace them. If they are not hisoric or fine hardwood, it is simply not worth the effort.
Jenson you know I most always agree with you. And I do here too. But is all that sanding, smell, mess, and elbow grease really worth it when one can buy a brand new door for $20? Surely each door is going to cost about $3 in sand paper alone and then all the chemicals, stains, brushes, tack cloth, electricity and so on. And in the end they are still stuck with an ugly old door that is probably 30 years out of style.
This is who I been buying from for the past 9 years: http://www.decore.com/products.asp
There may well be cheaper cabinet door manufacturers out there then these people but I loved their product and short lead times as well as geat customer service.
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