Paint Stripper.
 

With traditional 'Nitromors' stripper [the Methyl Chloride version] having been outlawed a while back, when I've wanted to strip paint from metal cabinets etc. I've been using a paste made from Sodium Hydroxide crystals and water. It's effective but not nice-to-know because of its extreme alkalinity and ability to digest wood, fabrics, flesh if it gets splashed on them. It's also no good on 'soft' metals like aluminium zinc or magnesium-alloys for the same reason.

So recently when I wanted to remove aqccumulated paint from an aluminium-alloy diecasting I was in a quandary: NaOH would have destroyed it. In the past I've been deeply cynical of the strippers offered to replace Nitromors, but I thought I'd have a go with using "Diall Paint and Varnish Remover" from B&Q. This is an off-white gel (looks a bit like runny custard!) which contains Benzyl Alcohol as the active ingredient.

https://www.diy.com/departments/b-q-.../262263_BQ.prd

To my surprise, it worked - leaving the casting sitting in a jam-jar full of the stripper, the paint was then easy to work-off using one of the little brass-bristled brushes sold for cleaning suede.

The paint on the casting was ordinary gloss: how well this stripper would work on cellulose, or two-pack paint/varnish I have yet to discover. But it worked, so I'm happy.

Re: Paint Stripper.
 

Yes, the benzyl alcohol product has been available from Wickes for a few years. I think they sell it as their own brand paint and varnish remover. I've been really pleased with it and have mentioned it on the Forum a few times previously.

It often takes a little time to work, and isn't suitable for all materials, but it is pretty much at the top of my "go to list" for removing paint, varnish and other 'soils' from surfaces.

B

Re: Paint Stripper.
 

Langlow still make a proper paint stripper, akin to the old Nitromors.

Regards,
Richard

Re: Paint Stripper.
 

I thought Methylene Chloride/Dichloromethane - the active component of 'classic' Nitromors - had been banned for consumer-sale as paint-stripper within the EU some years back?

http://www.paintsquare.com/news/?fus...n=view&id=7328

I guess it depends on what counts as 'industrial' or 'commercial' use. I can still buy traditional Creosote in 25-litre drums though its sale for domestic use was also banned some years back.

Re: Paint Stripper.
 

True - dichloromethane is supposed to be only used by professionals in a controlled environment by suitably trained and equipped personnel and most suppliers won't supply to the general public

The guidance sheet states that LANGLOW'S 'STRIPAWAY PRO' is only approved for use by suitably trained and equipped professional operators within a suitably equipped working environment, such as a locally exhaust ventilated paint booth, where operators can be equipped with the appropriate respiratory protection to ensure they are not exposed to DCM vapours which are above the workplace exposure.

That said, surprisingly perhaps, it's on unrestricted sale via Amazon at £34.99 for 5 Litres, and from at least one e-bay supplier for £24.99.

I won't give the links, for obvious reasons.

It really is vicious stuff - ride at your own risk!

Re: Paint Stripper.
 

It seems from the press release that the product might still available for de-greasing, but that its packing would not include any mention of using it as a paint stripper. Rather like Jeyes Fluid, which no longer advises its use for sterilizing soil, or the Gardeners' Question time programme where one of the panel mentioned that they are no longer able to advise gardeners to use diluted washing up liquid to kill aphids without wearing complete body protection (because it will irritate the eyes if any gets there).

Re: Paint Stripper.
 

Re: Dichloromethane:

True: as a student I used it to strip the paint/signwriting off a 2500-gallon agricultural fuel-bowser/trailer, applying it with a paint-roller-on-a-broomhandle. It was summer, and so I was wearing only a pair of [nylon] football-shorts. Half an hour later I came out in desperately-itchy smallpox-style blisters, and my shorts looked like they'd suffered a major clothes-moth infestation.

Since then I've used DCM with more respect.

Re: Paint Stripper.
 

You can still buy dichloromethane based strippers on ebay, exactly like the old Nitromors, great stuff that burns your skin on contact!

Re: Paint Stripper.
 

In my neck of the woods the agricultural factors will say, "I'm supposed to ask whether you've got a licence / are trained", and leave it at that. It's thus still possible to get paint stripper, proper creosote and weedkiller that actually work. Of course one must take suitable precautions, but that's a personal responsibility, not the job of a nanny state.

Regards,
Richard

Re: Paint Stripper.
 

Dichloromethane (methyl chloride) was also used as a refrigerant!
Rob

Re: Paint Stripper.
 

Selection of gloves is important. Polish Pete and I put one of the disposable gloves we had been supplied with to 'safely' make PU mouldings, into the bin, and sprayed DCM onto it. It started bubbling.

Re: Paint Stripper.
 

(Common) chemical names can be very confusing, but could I just point out that Dichloromethane (aka Methylene Chloride, or even Methylene Dichloride), is not at all the same chemical as Methyl Chloride - they are very different.

Re: Paint Stripper.
 

I agree with Goldie99 here. Common, or trivial, chemical names are a pain, though sometimes better understood over the somewhat pedantic systematic names. For completeness, the chemicals that involve one carbon atom, up to four hydrogen atoms and from zero to four chlorine atoms are:

Methane - one carbon, four hydrogen atoms - a gas (also called marsh-gas).
Chloromethane - one carbon, three hydrogen and one chlorine atom - a gas (also called methyl chloride).
Dichloromethane - one carbon, two hydrogen and two chlorine atoms - a volatile liquid (also called methylene chloride or methylene dichloride).
Trichloromethane - one carbon, one hydrogen and three chlorine atoms - a volatile liquid (also called chloroform).
Tetrachloromethane - one carbon, four chlorine atoms - a volatile liquid (also called carbon tetrachloride).

The chlorine-containing ones are pretty much all limited in sale to qualified, responsible customers who are aware of the various hazards including toxicity and depletion of the ozone levels in the atmosphere.

Colin.

Re: Paint Stripper.
 

On the subject of toxicity of chemicals, I was listening on the radio to a scientist talking about lead. At the start of his career (in the US), it was thought that there was a 'safe' level of lead in human blood and that it was around 50 units (units might have been ug/litre). Anyway, during the last forty years that limit has come down and down. In some rural areas of the US, some kids now test as low as 1-5 units, but... the statistics still suggested that the kids with 1 unit showed better cognitive development than kids with 5 units. The suggestion is that some exposure does some harm and more exposure does more harm. The idea of "Safe Levels" has always been largely speculative, and that probably applies to lots of other stuff too!

B

Re: Paint Stripper.
 

Sorry, I was mistaken. But, at least half right about methyl chloride used as an old time refrigerant. It was seeing the linked names in an earlier (but later corrected) post that prompted my comment.
According to my dad (who came across it in the 1940s), it had a slightly sweet smell! Unlike R12 which was odourless, unless burned! Burning was a sure way to detect leaks before the electronic leak detectors!
Rob

Re: Paint Stripper.
 

Some of the level-setting was expedient.

The USA had huge swathes of industrial land until the 1920-s to 30's. There were foundries everywhere, as well as chemical plants using lead to make paint. Later on, that deeply contaminated land became used for building projects for the poor.

Soil levels of lead in the yards of these houses still spiked out test equipment well into the turn of this century. There were a number of civil lawsuits filed for health problems relating to the unwitting ingestion of lead from these places. If permitted levels were lowered, these would have proliferated hugely.

Re: Paint Stripper.
 

Dihydrogen monoxide is a fairly weak solvent, but can be quite harmful in some circumstances. Just lately, large amounts of it in its solid form has caused a degree of travel disruption. No restrictions on its sale though.

Stuart

Re: Paint Stripper.
 

Hahaha!! Better be careful next time I have a bath.

It reminds me ... a defence that ‘even milk can be toxic’ was made by a chemical engineer on the witness stand, defending his part in corporate environmental malfeasance.

He was in charge of operations in a smelter with multiple, felony violations - air and water pollution. His levity incensed the EPA.

Re: Paint Stripper.
 

Have to disagree there, sorry. Water dissolves more things any other liquid and is known as the 'universal solvent' because of this property;)

Cheers,
Steve.