give me your best paint stripping advice

[heygrey]

i bought a cute little solid wood dresser today, but it's in rough shape paint-wise. i sanded a bit and can see at least three layers, but probably more. i'm planning to paint it again in the end, so it doesn't have to be perfectly stripped. would you sand it all, or go with a liquid stripper?

this is new diy territory for me so i appreciate any advice!

[housegeek]

I would ( and will be, I have a similar project) use liquid stripper if it's that thick.

[Deleted]

I am not wearing my glasses and so did not originally see the word paint in that title. With that being said I would definately use a liquid paint stripper on that.

[auntie]

I would use a liquid-gel stripper. Follow the directions exactly in terms of time on and safety.

I don't sand paint of an unknown provenence.

[aweilba]

I agree about using a liquid or gel stripper. I've used it before for similar projects, and it works. Just make sure you're in a well-ventilated area; some of that stuff has a strong smell to it.

[Deleted]

Do you know if it is likley lead paint (e.g. do you know how old it is)? I treat lead stripping differently than I do other types of stripping. And I absolutely wouldn't sand even a little bit if there was a possibility it contained lead.

[heygrey]

thanks!

the dresser is an antique, but i have no idea when the first coat of paint went on, thus no clue about the potential for lead. the more i read online it comes down to the lesser of two evils - sanding and potentially spreading lead dust or using chemicals. anything that claims to be organic or bio-based is more or less useless. since i can do the whole project outside i'll go with the gel/liquid.

[Deleted]

I think chemicals are way the lesser of two evils. I can't believe anyone's recommending dry sanding lead paint. I'm pretty sure the EPA's website strongly advises against sanding, but I read it a while ago. I use tons of plastic to cover the ground and I wear a mask or respirator depending on how much dust I'm creating. I also have these disposable coverall things from HD, but I also tend to wear old clothes I can just seal and toss at the end. I usually take all the textiles out of a room before I strip to avoid dust trapped in them, but if you're outside that shouldn't be a problem. I have it down to a science for my trim in my house. My first round is with a product called Peel Away. I follow up with citrus stripper (Jasco is too noxious for me). I scrape the citrus stripper away with these tiny detail scrapers sort of like this from the local hardware store: www.stewmac.com/shopby/item/0630?utm_source=google&utm_medium=shopping&utm_campaign=2012-07-gp. The contoured blades really get in all the nooks and crannies, which you'll probably have a lot of on furniture. Following that, I use citrus stripper again and go over it with a wire brush from HD, which gets it all out of the grain. I finish up with a wipe down of mineral spirits, and it's pretty much clean. I try to keep the groud plastic relatively clean, so I keep grocery bags around to drop the scrapings into, then I bag up everything in a garbage bag, so most of it is double bagged.