IR Paint Stripper, Black

I used to use the 1500 degree gun-shaped paint strippers but there was always the risk of having the piece of wood catch fire. I have been using the IR paint stripper beginning last year and it works about the same speed and quality as the gun-shaped 1500 degree strippers. This unit is about a foot long and maybe 4 or 5 inches wide so it does a good size area for a handheld device. It does take a few minutes to warm up , and it does get hot. You will see some smoke when the paint starts to melt. But I was able to hold the device with my hands for several hours and had no burns or damage to myself or the house...So I would say it's a lot less dangerous than the gun-shaped paint removers. The handle does fold and it has a simple on/off button so there isn't much too it. The heating element feels like a piece of porcelain and can wash off with a paper napkin after it's cool. So far no problems, works as advertised, and I will be using it again in the spring.

First unit came shattered and looked previously used with paint stuck to the cord so I returned and reordered hoping this was a one mistake with inventory. Second was was less broken but plate was still chipped with pieces rattling underneath the heating element and there is paint stuck to the cord again. AGAIN broken and used when I paid for new. So very disappointed I didn't even get to try it but not going to try again. Moving on from this one.

This is not the perfect tool and is not ergonomic. It is in addition to 3 Sanders. I am restoring the wood in a house built in 1900. The varnish,linseed oil etc that is on the wood is chewing up sandpaper by the box. This removes the varnish and then I sand to bare wood. It does get hot and it does bubble the paint. I'll update when I've used it awhile and show some pictures

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE!!!!!! Where has it been all my life. SO EASY TO USE!!!!! No more chemical stripping for me. As long as you pay attention to what you’re doing you won’t hurt yourself or the whatever your stripping the Finnish off of.

This is better than paint stripper, but it's cheap for a reason. It does not heat evenly. You need to have the center of it directly over the area you want to scrape, because the sides of the ceramic plate do not have enough heat to work. This is so bulky to use with such a small area that actually works. You're better off buying the cobra speed heater if you have the money or if you're covering a large area. I used this to remove paint off a door frame, and even that small project took over a week because it's really annoying to use and control.

The media could not be loaded. It is cumbersome.It keeps getting hotter after it reaches its supposed maximum temperature.Instructions say keep it 1/2" from surface of wood which is unrealistic to do and you will struggle with removing paint and you will seriously burn your wood.They should have taken this to the next level and it would rival $500-$600 IR paint removers but they didn't and so the end result just doesn't work.The first 6 minutes of my video are just getting ready to use my modified paint removal tool. It is only the second time I tried it out. Starting at 7 minutes you can see the potential of this tool. I am removing the paint from 60 year old cabinet doors with at least 4 coats of paint on them. I tried chemical strip, forget it - you might S well but new cabinets but with the addition of a thermistor used for smoking meat and adding feet to keep the tool 1" above the surface of the wood I am able to remove without any flaws all of the paint on half of a 30x15 cabinet door in 10 minutes. Chemicals took me over. 6 hours and what a mess.Why they didn't make simple improvements to make this a great tool I do not understand.

My project is restoring a 1930s Art Deco piano that was in show business, where it was repainted at least 14 times! Reading about options for paint removal, the Infrared method seemed to offer the best hope of getting multiple layers at a time AND avoiding scorching the beautiful Ash wood that was laying at the bottom.The image on the Left shows the 11 color layers revealed by sanding (where the uppermost Black-Gray-Black color layers were already peeled off.) The image on the Right shows a 10" long strip of ALL the paint layers, that was easily removed with a putty knife, after allowing the paint to "bubble and smoke" per the instructions -- about 30 secs or so. Folks, this really works and has made this daunting task seem very approachable. And yes, I didn't create a single scorch on the wood.My one complaint with the unit is that the ON/OFF switch is located on the handle where I inadvertently turned it off on several occasions. Once getting aware of that I was able to stop doing it and happily toasted away. If you are coordinated, while scrapping one area one can heat an adjacent area, to save time.

I hate stripping wood! Promised the spouse I’d take some trim in our kitchen down to the wood since they like the wood look. Bought this IR stripped to hopefully make the process go faster and this thing is great! Photo was from time just trying it out a bit. I put it on the trim for only about 10 seconds and used a razor to pull off the paint and was shocked this thing went down about 8 layers of paint!I still hate stripping wood but the IR stripper made the labor 10 times faster than I know it would have been without it. Took me about 2 hours to strip this door trim and another hour to do a window. It didn’t get everything off 100% maybe about 90% which is great considering there were a lot of crevices on my trim. We’d already tried a heat gun and it was nothing compared to the IR paint stripper. Fumes were also less than with the regular heat gun.