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Furniture / Wood drain yourself - DIY instructions & costs

  • Leaching or pickling "> Costs and prices for leaching
  • Drain the furniture yourself - step by step
  • Video - lime off wood

There are so beautiful old furniture that we would all like to put in our apartment. We just have to find you among many layers of super ugly color. How to rid the wooden furniture of a covering of layers of paint, we show in the instructions: make waste itself.

It is often a real hide and seek game and you can only guess if a baby of beautiful wood is actually hiding under the thick cargo of old paint. Every decade had its own fashion direction and its own color style. To expose the true beauty, the color must be down. For this purpose, the furniture is leached from real wood. You can even do that yourself. In our DIY manual we show the individual work steps. An overview of the costs incurred will show you whether it is even worthwhile to lend a hand.

You need this:

  • Spatula / puller
  • wire brush
  • Chisel narrow
  • Brush / plastic sponge / nylon brush / scrubbing brush
  • Mouthguard / eye protection
  • Gloves especially for chemicals
  • Ablauger / caustic soda / ammonia / caustic soda / potash
  • (Stripping paste)
  • old towels

Why waste wood?

The beautiful old buffet from the turn of the century has already done so many paintings, or better to endure. Most of the old layers were not removed before another one was made. So you can still find the vanilla yellow of the fifties and the bright orange from the seventies, followed by a cruel ugly dark green from the eighties. Today the good piece is still spoiled with the blue visible layer of the last fashion. Sanding is therefore hardly possible because the paint is immediately in the sandpaper and you would consume tons of it. So only the solution remains, the furniture either with caustic soda or caustic soda leach or abzzubizen.

Tip: Not every type of wood copes well with the leaching. Oak, for example, contains many tannins and turns slightly brownish or gray on leaching. Not all of these influences can be completely flushed off during thorough rinsing after leaching. Inquire therefore, from which kind of wood your piece of furniture was manufactured. You may want to hire a specialist company to carry out the process rather than carry it out yourself.

Leaching or pickling?

The two methods are often lumped together when it comes to removing layers of paint on wood. This may be because leachants are often referred to as alkaline paint removers. A color-removing lye transforms fatty acid-containing paints and coatings into a kind of soap. Also, the oily s of the old colors are dissolved into soap. Both fabrics can then be removed relatively easily from the wood. For this purpose, either spatula and puller are used and / or the residues are washed off. Almost exclusively antiques are leached off because modern paints can often not be leached.

Drain antique furniture

Specialist companies dip the furniture usually in the Ablauger and rinse them off later thoroughly. The problem is in the color used, because, as described above, of course, leaches can only work on colors that actually contain oil. Therefore, only these colors for the Ablauger based on caustic soda or caustic soda are eligible:

  • oil paints
  • Oil-based paint
  • Alkyd

In recent years, however, almost exclusively acrylic varnish is used, which can be diluted with water. Acrylic varnish as well as emulsion paints, which are mostly used as wall paints, have no effect at all with the typical scrubber. These paints must be treated with a paint remover that contains solvents. If it is not possible to use a leacher, you should rather use the orbital sander and sandpaper, because the paint remover, not least because of the solvents considered to be highly hazardous to health . If you still want to use such paint strippers, you must equip yourself with a respiratory protection. In addition, you should use these products only outdoors.

Drain furniture outdoors

Costs and prices for the waste liquor

There are pastes, powders and ready-mixes, which remove with more or less success each color layer of the wood. It is not absolutely necessary to buy a ready mix, many other remedies have the same effect. It may also depend on the color originally used, which lye works better and the color quickly decreases from the wood. Ammonia, caustic soda or caustic soda from the pharmacy have the same effect. In the caustic soda, an approximately ten percent mixture should be used.

The required accessories are not expensive and the leacher is usually not. Starting at around 10.00 euros per liter you get a leach in every hardware store. The larger the container, the lower the price per liter. How much of the product you need depends, on the one hand, on the type of color and on the other hand on the number of layers of paint.

  • Ablauger 1 liter - from 10, 00 Euro
  • Ablauger 10 liters - from 70, 00 Euro
  • Ablauger 20 liters - from 130, 00 Euro

What does a craftsman or a specialist company cost "> pieces of furniture

  • Chest of drawers up to 80 cm wide - from 130, 00 Euro
  • Wooden chest up to 60 cm wide - from 70, 00 Euro
  • Table up to 100 cm wide - from 120, 00 Euro
  • Bench up to 100 cm wide - from 120, 00 Euro
  • Chair - from 50, 00 Euro
  • Chair with armrests - from 70, 00 Euro
  • Vertiko without attachment to 80 cm wide - from 130, 00 Euro
  • Vertiko with attachment to 80 cm wide - from 160, 00 Euro
  • Buffet without attachment to 140 cm wide - from 180, 00 Euro
  • Buffet with top to 140 cm wide - from 220, 00 Euro
  • Cot - from 80, 00 Euro
  • Single bed - from 100, 00 Euro
  • Double bed - from 160, 00 Euro
  • Nightstand - from 70, 00 Euro

Tip: You should fine-tune the price with the company. If there are many layers of different older colors, most companies charge surcharges of up to 30 percent. So before the work starts the awakening, you should ask the company to give a fixed price.

Even elements from an old building may need to be leached during a renovation. Here are some examples of the costs of these things for a specialist company:

Old building elements

  • Handrail stairs - per meter about 10, 00 Euro
  • Railing stairs - per meter about 10, 00 Euro
  • Shutters - per square meter from 50, 00 Euro
  • Room doors - pieces up to 2 square meters from 110, 00 Euro
  • Front doors - pieces up to 2 square meters from 180, 00 Euro
Liquify wood elements

Tip: These prices do not include the collection or return of the treated furniture. You either have to do this yourself or pay extra at the specialist company. Mostly certain prices per kilometer are required. You should therefore select a company that is as close as possible to your place of residence.

Drain the furniture yourself - step by step

You should wear eye protection and gloves that are resistant to chemicals. In addition, especially if you work in an interior, respiratory protection is very important. The means for the leaching dissolve not without reason even the most robust colors in a relatively short time. The same result is achieved by the products on the skin and the eyes.

Important: Safety is the most important step for a home improvement.

Protective gloves, respiratory protection and safety goggles

Step 1 - Read Instructions for Use - Obtain Information

Since all these remedies are quite dangerous, you should definitely study the instructions for use with a purchased Ablauger. Many do-it-yourselfers are now happily refraining from this point, so let's point this out again. Even if you use a product from the pharmacy, you should fully inform yourself before the application.

Step 2 - Apply the degreaser

Ask at the hardware store for a sponge that can withstand caustic soda or caustic soda. Some products dissolve. You can also apply the product with a plastic brush, which produces significantly more spatter. Therefore apply the leacher with the sponge. Depending on the manufacturer, an effect is visible as soon as you rub it in for the first time.

Apply lye

Tip: If you have stirred caustic soda to a 10% caustic solution, you should wipe up more of the caustic solution on the paint until the paint begins to peel off. It is important to mix the caustic soda sufficiently strong, because otherwise later on the wood a white veil remains, which can not be removed anymore. Beginners, in particular, tend to mix the caustic soda too much as they hope to speed up the action.

Step 3 - Wash the furniture - Scrape off the paint

Much of the old color will begin to swell and dissolve. Use a spatula or a triangular puller to push the paint residue off the furniture. If you want to work with a wire brush, you should be very careful with softwood. If the paint is still too tight, you can use the sponge again to apply a little leach. If a large part of the paint is removed, you can remove the rest with water and a coarse brush. Make sure that there is nowhere to collect water and stay in one place on the piece of furniture.

Tip: Some craftsmen use a high-pressure cleaner for cleaning. But you should do that only if your high-pressure cleaner has an adjustable jet. For softwoods such as pine or spruce, keep your fingers away from the pressure washer. The danger of milling dents into the old softwood is just too big. What good is it, if the color is gone, the wood but also ">

Tip: If you still want or need to sand off some minor stains, you should do so only after the wood has dried. The sandpaper settles very fast when the wood is still a bit damp. In addition, some connections may need to be re-sized. You should do this before the last sanding, so that you can immediately remove any leaking glue.

Video - lime off wood

Nice video with good explanation, which wood species may be leached:

Tips for quick readers

  • Buy leachers or mix them yourself
  • Check offer specialist company
  • Ask for pickup costs
  • If possible, determine the type of the old color
  • Read the instructions carefully
  • personal protection eyes, hands, respiratory protection
  • Apply lye with sponge
  • Leave the leacher on and moisten
  • Remove paint with spatula and wire brush
  • Washing off the drain
  • no stagnant water on the wooden furniture
  • Correctly rework corners
  • Dry wood furniture with old towels
  • Furniture needs to dry in peace
  • possibly re-glue connections
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