Paint stripper

I guess it's no worse than the "good ol' stuff" I used as a kid with absolutely no PPE at all. Thanks for the suggestion.

Reading that first link was sufficient to put me off using caustic soda. I'll just buy a commercial paint stripper and see if it works.

Yes, caustic soda is nasty stuff and you should know what you are doing before handling it.

Thor

A couple of posts mention Brick Acid or Patio Cleaner (ie Hydrochloric Acid) as a way of neutralising Caustic Soda. Although cheap and readily available I wouldn't bother: Caustic Soda is very water soluble, so just wash well in water. Dilute rather than neutralise. Less fuss and it saves money.

Another good reason to avoid. Neutralising stripped steel with Hydrochloric Acid promotes rust. Chloride ions penetrate deep into the pores of iron and steel and are difficult to remove. Over time they cause rust under paintwork. Neutralising Caustic Soda with Hydrochloric Acid is particularly bad because it produces salt-water which is notorious for rusting metal.

A big advantage of commercial paint strippers is they come with instructions. Following them is a good way of avoiding unexpected side-effects!

Dave

And just to reassure everyone, In my parents pub sixty years ago, standard operation Saturday night after the last of the great unwashed left, disconnect barrels from pipework and draw through cleaning fluid and fill pipes and hand pumps and leave overnight. First thing Sunday morning, connect pipes to mains water and flush whole system for 15 minutes. Lastly reconnect to barrels and pull through fresh beer.

Oh yes, cleaning fluid heavy concentration of Caustic soda. Never lost a customer, must have been lucky. As this was/is standard practice, Flushed straight down the Drains?

Regards Ian.

A quick update to say that I ended up trying "No Nonsense Paint and Varnish Stripper" (£5.99 for 0.5L) and it has worked better than expected. The paint doesn't fall off, but with a couple of applications the paint is greatly softened and can be scraped / wire brushed off with relative ease. I've tried it on iron, steel, brass and aluminium alloys and there has been no adverse reaction. I used it to strip the crown guard on my table saw (which I have since repainted) and I'm in the process of stripping parts on a small milling machine.