Watching a guy in a St. Louis workshop strip a table with a heat gun and a scraper made me stop using chemical strippers for anything with old shellac.

He got it down to bare wood in under an hour with zero gummy residue, while I'd have spent half a day and a gallon of nasty solvent on the same job, so has anyone else switched to thermal methods for pre-1940s pieces?

2 comments

2 Comments

parker_patel841mo ago

Heat guns are great until you scorch the wood or start a small fire in your garage. That chemical smell might be nasty, but at least it doesn't come with a side of potential property damage. Seems like trading one set of problems for another, honestly.

the_jordan1mo ago

Plus you're breathing in all those fumes with the chemical stripper. Both methods have serious downsides that nobody really talks about.