Owatrol Wood Stripping Guide: Stripping Your Fencing and Cladding

In all cases, we’d recommend trying a sample to test for the touch time (this means working out how long it is going to take for the coatings to lift) before embarking on the whole job.

Stripping wood oils from fencing and cladding

If your fence or cladding is coated with wood oils, we definitely recommend you strip them using Aquanett. It’s designed specifically for removing wood oils and it’s a gel formula so it’s easy to use on fences and cladding because it won’t run or sag.

To use Aquanett to strip wood oils from your fence you simply apply it, leave it to work for up to 5 minutes (maximum) and then scrub the surface whilst rinsing with the highest pressure water source you have available.

You need to neutralise the wood with Net-Trol after stripping your fencing or cladding to prevent the stripper from remaining active in the wood.

Stripping paint and opaque finishes from fencing or cladding

If you need to remove a paint or stain from your fence or cladding then we’d recommend Dilunett. Its a gel formulation so it won’t run on those tricky vertical surfaces and it can remove up to 8 coats of paint in a single application making it a quick and simple process. It also doesn’t dry so you can leave it on for up to 12 hours for particularly stubborn coatings.

To use it on your fencing or cladding apply the the Dilunett, leave it to work and then rinse whilst scrubbing in the direction of the grain to remove the coating. After using Dilunett you will need to neutralise the wood with Net-Trol.

Before you start stripping the entire area you should first perform a touch test (this is the same regardless of the stripper you are planning to use). To do this you apply to the stripper to a small area and leave it to work. After a period of time you begin to scrub the edge to see if the coatings are lifting, if not leave it a little longer and try again.

Once the coating is lifting successfully you can record the amount of time it has been on and that is your touch time. This is approximately how long you can expect it to take for the rest of the surface – although this is of course dependent on the surface being coated evenly!

Uhoh – I’m not sure what my fence is coated with!

If you’re not sure what you’re trying to strip then don’t panic, it’s not a huge problem. For fencing, our first recommendation would be to purchase a sample of Dilunett and try it out on a small area to see if it will lift the coating. As Dilunett will lift paints with ease but will also lift oils, it’s a good place to start.

If you find that even after leaving the Dilunett for its full working time of 12 hours your coatings are still not lifting then we would suggest trying a sample of DSP 800. It’s a more powerful stripper which can even remove 2-pack paints but you don’t rinse it with water you have to use a scraper or scrubbing brush so it will be more onerous.

Hopefully we’ve given you some helpful hints for how to strip your fences and cladding.