Summary for bad paint job removal Discussion
The thread on bad paint job removal for a retro oven says the safest practical approach is usually to strip the unwanted coating before repainting with high-heat paint. Cherry Dye asked how to remove dripping red paint from a 1960s reproduction oven. Christian M. Restifo suggested starting with a chemical stripper and elbow grease, or using mechanical methods such as sanding or grinding if needed. He cautioned that older paint may contain lead, so proper mask and protective gear are important when removing it mechanically. For a small project, he recommended testing a small can of stripper on a hidden spot first. If the oven is large or has many recesses and hard-to-reach areas, he said sandblasting may be worth pricing out as an alternative.
Q. I have recently bought a 1960’s reproduction oven that has been painted over with a dripping red paint. My question is how do I Remove this? I realize I will have to repaint with high heat paint but I have no idea how to remove the top layers of paint.
Cherry Dye
novice – Texas
October 1, 2009
A. Use a heat gun
⇦ on
eBay or
Amazon [affil link] on some high temperature paint?….;^)
Just kidding. You’re probably looking at either a chemical stripper and some elbow grease or mechanical means such as sanding, grinding, etc. If it’s old, be careful whatever you do as the old paint may have lead in it. I would suggest the proper mask and protective gear if you mechanically remove the paint.
If it’s not too big, I would probably try some chemical stripper first. You can buy a small can and test it on a spot to see how well it’s going to work. Then you can buy more if it does. If it’s real big or has lots of recesses/nooks/hard-to-reach-spots-for-a-stripper, you might want to try finding someone who does sandblasting and see how much it would cost to go that route.
Christian M. Restifo
– Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
October 12, 2009