Owatrol Wood Stripping Guide: How to strip garden furniture

How to work out your touch time to strip garden furniture

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!

In all cases, we’d recommend trying a sample to test for the touch time before embarking on the whole job.

Stripping paint and opaque finishes from garden furniture

If you need to remove a paint or stain from your garden furniture then we’d recommend Dilunett. Its also a gel formulation so it won’t run on those tricky intricate details 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 garden furniture first 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.

Stripping wood oils from garden furniture

If your garden furniture is currently coated with wood oils such as teak oil or linseed oil then we would recommend that 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 furniture and intricate detailing because it won’t run or sag.

To use Aquanett to strip wood oils from your garden furniture just apply it with a brush, 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 (a pressure washer is ideal for this).

You need to neutralise the wood with Net-Trol after stripping your garden furniture to prevent the stripper from remaining active in the wood and attempting to strip any future finishes you use on it!

Help! I have no idea what needs to be stripped from my garden furniture!

If you’re not sure what you’re trying to strip then don’t panic, it’s not a huge problem. 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, particularly on intricate detailing.

Hopefully that’s given you some useful information about stripping your garden furniture.