One of our viewers was wondering how to clean cooked-on grease off of kitchen walls around the stove, without bothering the paint.The reality is that it all depends on the quality of the paint you have on the wall.Regular latex paint can't stand much scrubbing. That is why we use latex acrylic e...
The first step is to try to determine what the stuff is that you want to strip: oil paint, latex paint, varnish, lacquer?.Then decide if you can work on all the surfaces horizontally, or if you will have to work on some vertically.Now start reading the labels of all the different strippers on the...
Marlowe from North York, Ontario has painted her doors, door knobs, and latches so well that nothing works any more -- the doors just won't stay shut.It is usually best to remove all the hardware before painting, or at least mask it -- but in this case she wanted to change the colour of the hardw...
Graffiti is a major problem primarily for cities and schools, but even some homeowners have to deal with passing artists. There are now several graffiti removers on the market, but here we looked at a new graffiti inhibitor from a company called Wearlon.This is a transparent coating that simply ...
The first thing you need to know is whether it is solid brass or just brass plated.Scratch the backside of a hinge or a hidden part of your brass piece. If you see a different metal under the coating, it is brass plated. If a deep scratch, or even a bit of grinding reveal no different metal, it...
A young lady grabbed our camera in a store and begged for help with hanging posters in her room. The scotch tape marks were just pissing off her mom too much.Probably the best of the new gadgets for hanging things on a wall is the one that you see advertised so much by 3M, the plastic clip that ...
Often door and window hardware has special brass or antique finishes on it. When you spill some latex paint on it and don't get it wiped up right away, or it has been painted over time and again, stripping off the paint can be touchy because if you are trying to restore it to its original condit...
When paint gets onto concrete by accident, or as graffiti, it is difficult to remove because the concrete is so porous that the paint soaks down in.We decided to test a few different removers.Bio-Wash Masonry Strip works very well at removing oil, latex, and spray enamel paints.De-Greaser from St...
Most paint removal or building cleaning is either done with harsh solvents or harsh blasted granules like sand. The solvents are not good for the environment, and the sand can remove important outer layers on materials like brick.We visited a cleaning/stripping company in Toronto, Ontario called...
One of the cardinal rules of painting or staining in order to avoid lap marks is to apply material wet-on-wet. On an interior wall that is done by rolling small enough sections that allow you to overlap the edge with the next section before the first one manages to dry. Painting wet-on-wet does...
