What would be the best method for removing varnish from skirting boards?

Question

What would be the best method for removing varnish from skirting boards?

Answer 1

You could use a hot air gun and a scrapper , but this can sometimes scorch the wood ,OK if you are painting over , paint remover is another method but , can be awkward , If it is one room and your diy is up to it , removal and replacing with new might be the quickest answer

Answer 2

You're talking about your baseboards? or just the 3/4" quarter-round shoe moulding?

If you're just renewing the shoe moulding, then pry it off carefully, make note of where the pieces should go (write on the back with a sharpie, make a quick drawing of the room and note where the pieces go), and then lay them on sawhorses and apply a paint stripper, sand and refinish.

If you're talking about the actual baseboard, then it should stay in place. But you're going to be working on your hands and knees right at the floor, which I think you'll find to be very tiresome. Again, paint stripper will do the job. If the existing finish is in fact varnish, using heat will give you a gummy mess to deal with when it is heated and softened. Varnish does not come off as nicely with heat as does, say, regular paint.

But, unless the baseboards are somehow unique or very nice, I would hazard to guess that you'll spend much more in time and labor to strip them than you would to replace them.

Can you just rough up the existing varnish finish and re-paint? Stripping them will be a big chore.

Answer 3

Depends on what your going to put on afterwords, if paint then sand them down to form a key for the undercoat and gloss finish.