Thread: Sanding LOTS of 85year old VJ's & Weatherboards ... what to buy ?

Here's my twopenn'orth.

For weatherboards: A nice, slim VARIABLE SPEED grinder of 4 1/2" to 5" with 24 grit Carborundum Discs is about perfect: choose one that you think you could safely use with one hand up a ladder. It needs to be used with a deft, light touch. Modern plastic paints are marvellous. You only need to remove loose, flaky paint and any oxidised, chalky deposits and lightly abrade the rest to provise the correct "key" for acrylic finishes. Anything more is unnecessary and obsessive. The elasticity-plasticity of good quality modern finishes are such that they will only require a regular water blast to stay in good condition and to prepare for subsequent recoats. Invest in a proper quality respirator, coveralls and a beanie and don't let the dust inside (both airborne and in/on you). Hosing it all down before, during and after will help suppress airbourne dusts. You can prepare a house exterior in less than a day with this method, provided there's not much filling and resanding to do. Repaint with the best quality paint available. Cheap paint is a false economy.

V-joint linings: Try to avoid at all costs sanding interiors. Buy the last fellow's Metabo Raint Remover. I'm on my 4th. house with mine & I swear by it. It's a sort of micro-adjustable plane based on an angle grinder but with a machined alloy head. It can be adjusted to remove individual layers of finish. I kid you not. I modified mine to fit a CT22 extractor. Used with care it will also reach into 90 degree vees, but I regard doing so as unsafe. This is where those marvellous abovementioned Sandvik/Bahco Carbide scrapers come into their own. Provided you don't try scraping any nails they'll last & last. They can be used with or without hot air and or chemical strippers, as you own individual circumstances determine. I find the smallest model scraper with the triangular/teardrop heads used "dry" the most useful for my (140 Y.O. extremely heavily painted architrave and window mouldings) own circumstances. You will still require follow up sanding. A combination of Rotex/Deltex/Duplex ans quality extraction or equivalents will take care of any paint residues for a "Bare wood" finish. Forget orbitals: they are just too slow & crude. The rationale behind using the Metabo is simple. It would take me some 10 to 20 times as long to remove the paint in my workplaces with sanding alone. Also, sanding is just so damn dusty. Lead or no, paint is nasty stuff, and I still recommend all the safety gear anyway. Spending 3 grand on hardware, and only a few dollars on personal protection and safety is infantile.

Also a word about the historical integrity of your woodwork. Even with paint finishes and coverings, your woodwork will have acquired an certain aged patina, all too easily damaged or erased by overzelous sanding. It's sometimes better to leave paint residues in grooves and nailholes of interior paintwork rather than sand all the way back to "new" timber. This will become your signature of a sympathetic restoration to subsequent owners, and will enhance the value of your home.

Dash it all, this is an old thread, but who knows... someone may read it in the future.

Ratbag is 100% absolutely correct from a number of perspectives:
DON'T remove the paint from the VJ's, there's absolutely no need to do it, even if the surface is crook in places.

Sand by all means, fill the cracks if you have to... but you'll just waste enormous amounts of effort and bugger up what you have.

If you want a new look, then go and build a replica house!

I'm rather fond of a couple of tricks:

1) a light sand after a good scrub
2) fill any bad movement cracks with polystuff
3) a nice primer if necessary (I prefer it sprayed)
4) Satin walls (as close to flat as you dare), semi-gloss above the picture rails in the same colour as the walls (not historically accurate, but gives a slight variation in the colour to the eye) and dead flat ceilings.
5) I like to use the same colour for the trims including picture rails in full gloss.

If you want to do a complete "restoration" that's even more reason NOT to strip the paint off!!

Cheers,

P

If you decide you want to remove all of the paint,get hold of a radiant paint remover.They will remove the paint without burning it or the timber underneath,and are safe for use on lead paint.And they don't get hot like a heat gun will.

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