Thanks for the note - sorry I couldn’t answer sooner. You may have painted already, but I’ll respond anyway… No special treatment for the hinges. Unless they are disassembled (which can’t be easily done with most hinges), the moving parts are protected from the spray paint. Yes, I only masked off the bottom inside areas of the tracks where the wheels will touch. Probably not even necessary, but I erred on the side of caution Good luck with your project!

Good luck !)

Thanks for watching, and I appreciate your comments

I’m assuming you’re talking about ending up with a natural wood look (rather than an opaque house stain that looks like paint). We haven’t done that on a whole house exterior, but we’ve stripped paint from exposed timbers and not repainted them. Note: once the yellow house in the video was completely stripped of paint, several people commented that it looked so good that maybe we should skip the paint and just clear coat it! They were only half serious, but in any case it would be very difficult to get every bit of paint out of the thousands of tiny cracks and crevices of a house exterior, and that’s exactly what you’d have to do to transform a formerly painted house to a natural wood siding house.

Congratulations on your successful paint removal! Sounds like it was worth the time and effort. One source of professional grade scraping tools in Atlas Preservation Inc.

@@northriverbuildersinc908 Thanks for the response!

Thank you so much for taking the time to post a comment, and I appreciate the like! Yes, this video hasn’t been all that popular… I guess you, me, and just a handful of others will be the only ones with painted garage door hardware!

Square footage pricing doesn’t work due to the many variables, including labor rates for your area, the number of layers of paint, and the ratio of irregular trim (mouldings, etc) vs siding. Your best bet is to price the job based on the total estimated labor hours. If you’ve never done this type of work before, tell your customer you need do a test area to determine the price, then carefully track your time. Don’t forget to include time for light sanding prior to painting.

It should, but only if the bottom most layers of paint are old linseed oil based paint (if the bricks were first painted after 1950, there’s a very good chance it’s not linseed oil based)

The method works best with linseed oil based paint. Although linseed oil paint was still being used into the 1950s, it was being replaced with other formulations around then, so no guarantees. It’s safe to say that any house built before 1920 likely has linseed oil paint (at least the lower layers). Infrared stripping works if the lower layers are linseed oil paint, even if it was painted over with something else later on

@@northriverbuildersinc908 thank you for replying!!! So, old fashioned scraper for my house is best option? 🤣🤣🤣

If the doors and hardware are going to be the same color, you should be fine leaving it all together. If not, you’ll have to decide which is more work - masking around all of the hardware or disassembling everything.

Thanks for watching!

Thanks for commenting!

Good question… but not easy to answer. The color depth and tone you’ll end up with is determined by the type of brass as well as the length of time it’s been exposed to the solution. Some types of brass will end up lighter and others darker, and also either warmer or cooler in tone, but despite those variations, I guess I’d never really describe the final color as black. By the way, the reason we finished the hardware in the video with a brown-tinted wax is because when it came out of the solution, the color was a bit cooler than we expected. The brown wax gave us the color correction we wanted. We’ve done different hardware with the exact same process and it’s come out with a warmer, more bronzy hue. When that happens, we use clear wax for the final step

Glad you found it helpful! Good luck with your project- and let us know how it goes! :)

I recommend the Speedheater 1100 for larger areas (siding) and the Speedheater cobra for detail work (moulding, window trim, etc). Both are available online through Eco-Strip. Note: there are other manufacturers that sell knock off units that looks similar for half the price, but they’re not as well made and tend to fail.

@@northriverbuildersinc908 thank you!

I used the COBRA for a lead remediation project at my house. It worked great. Not a cheap machine, but worth every penny.

The high performance primers and paints available today outperform the old lead-based paints for sure, but since the primary cause of paint peeling is moisture getting behind it, I think removing all of the cracked and chipped paint went a long way towards preventing water intrusion, and in turn, peeling. The paint job in the video was done 5 years ago and is still solid. We used top of the line Benjamin Moore primer and paint. We also re-roofed the building prior to painting it, so that’s leak- free as well.

@@northriverbuildersinc908 Thanks!

Good question… I didn’t track the cost, but I can say that the IR stripping portion took approximately 300 man hrs . you might be able to get the power consumption specs for that IR unit and calculate the cost from there.

There are a few reasons I can think of that might cause this to happen… 1. The most common is that the darkening agent has gotten diluted or was weakened by use (it loses its effectiveness with exposure to brass) 2. The surface was contaminated somehow. In the past I did this same ORB treatment on a pair of outdoor brass handrails. One came out out a little lighter (and slightly more blue) than the other. I don’t know what happened, but I buffed it down to raw brass and treated it again with a fresh batch of darkening agent. The second time came out much better. 3. Brass is made by combining copper and zinc, and it’s possible that yours has slightly different proportions of those metals. If this is the case, there might not be much you can do… however, if you haven’t waxed the parts, you can deepen the color by using a dark-tinted Briwax like the one I used in the video

@@northriverbuildersinc908 Thank you! I also ordered the Sur Fin product you recommended to see if their product will give a darker shade. If we use wax, will the finish still come off eventually? My client wants it to remove over time from use.

@@stepandrailco yes, if you use wax the finish will still wear off over time, naturally revealing the brass at the wear points

@@northriverbuildersinc908 Appreciate the replies

You are so welcome! Thanks for writing!

Thanks for your feedback, and best of luck with your project! It’s a lot of work, but so worth it!

If it’s solid brass, have at it :)

Not any reasonable concerns. Infrared operating temps are low enough not to ignite wood through normal usage. You’d have to leave the unit on and not move it for many hours to generate enough heat to cause wood to ignite. A standard heat gun, on the other hand, is hot enough to ignite wood, and there have been cases where removing paint with a standard heat gun has resulted in a house fire.

Thanks Roberto!

:)

We used 3M synthetic hand sanding pads, “very fine” grade. We’ve also used medium grade with success. The synthetic pads are quite forgiving and can be controlled by applying more or less pressure.

You’re right… and no bronze either! I’m not sure how the door hardware industry came up with that name, but who am I to judge? ;) Anyway, it should give you some comfort to know that waxes and oils are closely related (they are both lipids, but in solid and liquid forms, respectively), so I suppose the wax-rubbing step could qualify!

Hi Paul - thank you for taking the time to write, and also for the positive feedback. The paint crew also used a much smaller IR tool called a Cobra for the detailed trim. The Cobra is held in one hand, and a contoured scraping tool is held in the other. Both are available from www.eco-strip.com/product/speedheater-cobra/

Glad you found the video helpful! If you choose to use lacquer instead of wax, I’d recommend using spray-on in a matte or flat finish. These sheens are less common than gloss or satin so your local paint store is less likely to have them in stock, but you can find them online. Good luck with your project!

Thanks, I appreciate your help!

If it’s solid brass it should work. I think it would look cool, but one reason not to do it would be that future scratches from use would be a lot more visible. If that would bother you, I’d suggest leaving it as-is

Yes, that’s an Important point

Yes, I have heard of brushing on linseed oil to soften old paint and aid removal - and although I haven’t experimented with it myself, it makes sense that it would reduce the dust/flaking issues that you describe The siding color is Ben Moore HC-8

@@northriverbuildersinc908 thanks for reply 👍🏼

That’s great to hear, Mark! I really appreciate your taking the time to share your experience.

Thanks for commenting, and best of luck with your project - let us how it turns out!

Thank you for the positive feedback! Yes, we offer complete antique home restoration services. You can find more info online at www.northriverbuilders.com