The struggle to make my deck beautiful continues. I hope I never have a reason to look at any kind of sander again in my life. (for the moment lets just ignore the fact that the fence has dibs as the next project). It's starting to come together now and I've even gotten some compliments on the portions that are done. But surprisingly that just makes me more impatient to finish it. With that in mind I hope you will forgive me for resorting to a chemical paint stripping compound. I know, I know...surely All Natural Elaine has not caved! Well, hell yes I have!
Calm down...I'm being responsible about it. As you can see by the pictures above this stuff is really strong. It only takes minutes for the paint to bubble like that. Amazing stuff..and wicked dangerous to use. And I found out the hard way. The directions said to wear gloves so I wore gloves. What I failed to notice was it said to wear thick gloves which means that the gloves I had on hand were the wrong ones. I have the kind of gloves a doctor would use. (insert your own joke here)
So the first time I used this stuff I had my gloves on and a tiny amount got on the side of one gloved finger. It took all of about 5 seconds to start burning like acid was eating through my skin!
I started yelling ouch ouch ouch ouch and moving at lightening speed for the kitchen door. Once inside I was panicking in my efforts to get the glove off so it took another 5 seconds to do that. I was sure the skin under that glove was going to be gone or come off with the glove. That's how bad it hurt! I chucked both gloves in the garbage, raced to the sink, grabbed for the dish soap and turned the water on all in record speed. Then I remembered the directions had said to use cool water and I found out quickly that hot water makes the pain even more intense.
In the end I was happy to find that my skin was still intact and there wasn't even a red spot on my finger.
Needless to say I didn't touch that stuff again until I had bought a thick sturdy pair of bright orange gloves. The fluorescent gloves worked just fine and I had the added pleasure of knowing that I was "styling" while working on my deck!
And the moral to the story kids is: You should never touch a tough stripper without sturdy orange gloves!
Calm down...I'm being responsible about it. As you can see by the pictures above this stuff is really strong. It only takes minutes for the paint to bubble like that. Amazing stuff..and wicked dangerous to use. And I found out the hard way. The directions said to wear gloves so I wore gloves. What I failed to notice was it said to wear thick gloves which means that the gloves I had on hand were the wrong ones. I have the kind of gloves a doctor would use. (insert your own joke here)
So the first time I used this stuff I had my gloves on and a tiny amount got on the side of one gloved finger. It took all of about 5 seconds to start burning like acid was eating through my skin!
I started yelling ouch ouch ouch ouch and moving at lightening speed for the kitchen door. Once inside I was panicking in my efforts to get the glove off so it took another 5 seconds to do that. I was sure the skin under that glove was going to be gone or come off with the glove. That's how bad it hurt! I chucked both gloves in the garbage, raced to the sink, grabbed for the dish soap and turned the water on all in record speed. Then I remembered the directions had said to use cool water and I found out quickly that hot water makes the pain even more intense.
In the end I was happy to find that my skin was still intact and there wasn't even a red spot on my finger.
Needless to say I didn't touch that stuff again until I had bought a thick sturdy pair of bright orange gloves. The fluorescent gloves worked just fine and I had the added pleasure of knowing that I was "styling" while working on my deck!
And the moral to the story kids is: You should never touch a tough stripper without sturdy orange gloves!
(you should have seen that one coming..)
