Sunday, June 11, 2006
Stripping Varnish
The sun made an appearance today! Woo hoo!
Progress. In the rain, I finished putting up some shelves between the studs. They're small but they're a place to store things. I hung the anchor so I wouldn't trip over it when doing stuff at the workbench. I decided to live with the imperfect dangling coaming arrangement - it'll still work. Then, I it was time to tackle the varnish removal from the coamings.
I got a heat gun from Home Depot and dug up a couple of cabinet scrapers that had been given to me long ago and for some reason stayed in my wayward tool collection, and grabbed my trusty 9-in-1 tool. After some trial and error, the removal was pretty straight forward.
I clamped the coaming to keep if from moving, then, wearing thick work gloves (latex ones don't insulate too well...), I would aim the heat gun right at the spot I was intending to remove. The varnish would just start peeling off as I scaped. Worked pretty well. BTW, the red handled paint scrapers weren't worth the trouble it took to dig them up.
If you'll notice: the dangling coaming in the picture above is stripped and ready for sanding. The other one is partially done. I'm looking forward to varnishing them.