How to strip varnish from garden bench

RobTi · 3 Sep 2022 at 11:03

Hi my mother has a garden bench showing it’s age so her granddaughter started sanding it and now left with only the decorative bits to strip, so will need a liquid type (nitromors) any suggestions on what to use ?
Thanks

thezappa · 3 Sep 2022 at 18:40

Nitromors would be fine but my understanding from people winging about ‘the good old days’ is that it isn’t as good as it used to be.
A more expensive option is peel away and that really is good (I used it on a fire surround once).
Another I’ve seen which is cheaper is kling strip but don’t have any experience so don’t know how effective it is.

alexakasloth · 3 Sep 2022 at 21:00

The panther one from Toolstation is quite good, the no nonsense one from Screwfix not so much.

Edit: also, used a tungsten carbide scraper.

cheesyboy · 3 Sep 2022 at 21:50

I found when using Nitromors, on an internal door, that it was ok on the paint but turned the varnish (that was under the paint) into a nightmarish gloopy mess that took me forever to sort.

So test on a small area first.

RobTi · 4 Sep 2022 at 09:05

Thanks all looks like it won’t be an easy job, as it’s just going to be painted afterwards could the old varnish be left if not lose

Chris Wilson · 4 Sep 2022 at 12:08

If it's a thing of high monetary value or high sentimental value having it soda blasted would be my go to. If you take it to the blaster it need not be terribly expensive. The modern paint strippers are pretty naff, not sure what good old `elf `n' safety decried had to be removed compared to the old strippers, but the current ones aren't a patch on stuff from 20 years ago.

arknor · 4 Sep 2022 at 22:12

thezappa said:
Nitromors would be fine but my understanding from people winging about ‘the good old days’ is that it isn’t as good as it used to be.

I used it around 2004 or so and it was crap.

leave it soaking for ages, then still need loads of elbow grease and a scraper... then do the whole thing 3-5x before you hit bare wood

Haggisman · 5 Sep 2022 at 12:14

thezappa said:
Nitromors would be fine but my understanding from people winging about ‘the good old days’ is that it isn’t as good as it used to be.
A more expensive option is peel away and that really is good (I used it on a fire surround once).
Another I’ve seen which is cheaper is kling strip but don’t have any experience so don’t know how effective it is.

I used Kling Strip to remove a load of old (suspected lead based) gloss from our stairs and it came up really well

thezappa · 5 Sep 2022 at 18:26

Haggisman said:
I used Kling Strip to remove a load of old (suspected lead based) gloss from our stairs and it came up really well

Good to know, thanks. I have another fire surround that has lead based paint on it and Kling strip came up as a viable alternative to Peel Away.