To Remove Paint Easily

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 118, 26 September 1941, Page 46

To Remove Paint Easily

Dear Aunt Daisy, One of your readers in The Listener asked for a way to remove paint. Pil tell you an easy way. Get a tin of egg preservative and paint all over the afticle to be cleaned, leave on for twenty-four hours, then take a bucket of warm water and scrub with sandsoap. All paint will be removed. I had a black oak sideboard, and I did this and got all the black stain off, and then had it done over in a light shade, Really very easy to do. -L.S. (Gisborne). Thank you, L.S. At the same time, it is quite possible now to re-enamel a datk piece of furniture a light colour, without first removing the old paintthat is, if you use a specially good product, and first thoroughly wash over the furniture to remove any grease. Some people have found it unnecessary even to sand-paper the furniture afterwards, as we were always told to do; but having washed it over and let it dry thoroughly, go right ahead with two fairly thin coats of this product. It is cheaper to use first an " undercoating," and then one coat of the colour; and if one wants a really perfect job, use first an undercoating and then two thin coats of the colour, making sure that each coat is thoroughly dry before: putting on the next. Be sure always to use the undercoating made by the same firm as the colour; for every firm uses a different formula, and different products will not go together. Here is a helpful letter on the subject from one of the Links in the Daisy Chain: "I had some old furniture, shabby but good, that I wished to enamel, but when I though of the time it would take to get off all the old varnish, my heart failed me, as I really hadn’t time to do it, being on a farm where there are no week-ends, as Saturday and Sunday are as the rest of the week. So ome day in desperation, I decided to take a risk and enamel over the old varnish, I cleaned all the grease and dirt off, and then used cream enamel for the bedstead and eau-de-nil for the dresser, The result was lovely, I had green and cream curtains too. Now I wondered how long it would last, seeing I had not removed the old varnish; well, it has been done over a year, and # is still as good as the day it was done. I know quite a lot of folk who just do not have the time to remove the old varnish, so do not do the things at all; but since they have seen how my things have kept, they have done theirs, I myself was a long

time before I did mine, just because’ I could not bring myself to get of the old varnish; but I would never hesitate again."