Removing Paint From Marble Mantlepiece
I believe that I have marble mantlepieces that have a few coats of paint on them. Does anyone knwo what the best (least damaging) way is to remove the paint?? Mantleman
I believe that I have marble mantlepieces that have a few coats of paint on them. Does anyone knwo what the best (least damaging) way is to remove the paint??
Mantleman
how do i get white paint off of a rock fireplace besides having to sandblast it????? i know that will make a terrible mess all over the house .. we are moving in about the middle of january and i wont it removed before we move in. any suggestions would be appreciated thanks monica
We just bought our second house that someone has painted over the rock fireplace. I can’t understand why people do this. It took me 3 months that last time to get the paint off using many wire brushes and paint stripper. This house has 2 fireplaces that someone did it too. I can see a little of the rock peeking thru in one place and it looks gorgeous.
Can the stuff that you guys mentioned above be used on rock as well? I will check it out at the local home improvement store when I go later today.
Thanks
Kim
See our marble mantel stripping photos in the My Brownstone secttion under Ft Green “Federal”. We used Zip Strip and 3M synthetic steel wool to great effect. No scratches and it took about 12 hours total. The fireplace insert was the real job. Wire brushes on a power drill after Zip Strip to get in the creases. I’ll post a photo of the finished project soon.
Rock Miracle is what the guy who has stripped all our fireplaces uses. It’s horrible but really does the job — he can do a mantle in 8 hrs. With marble, you’ll probably need to clean the stone once you’ve revealed it. Trick here is not to overdue it. You don’t want the marble to end up looking too white and “bleached”. The basic method involves creating a simple poultice to lift out old stains. Should be more info on this in the archive or you can check the bookstore/library. Good luck.
i stripped two fireplaces…one took me 6 weeks with rock miracle…there were about 20 layers of paint on it. when i had a marble guy come in to polish it (hindsite-hoaned would be more authentic for a brownstone), he told me that i could have used one of those razor blades used to scrape paint off of windows. well, i wound up doing the 2nd fireplace that way and it took me only about 2 days. obviously you should be careful, no matter which method you use, but i wish i had this info before i started the first one….
Thank you everyone. I shall give it the old college try.
I’ve used Zip Strip, as well as Peel Away. Zip strip was fine for the flat surfaces, and I used the Peel Away to get the paint out of the carved details. You see the paint bubble off pretty quickly with the Zip Strip. Use only a plastic scraper, not metal. With the Peel Away, the trick is to really pack it on like cake icing, keep it damp and active with a spray bottle, keep it covered, and leave on as long as possible (overnight) for it to work through the layers of paint. You have to be patient with this stuff – no instant results.
I also used old toothbrushes and cheap toothbrushes from the dollar store to scrub in the crevices, as well as a boatload of those dark green plastic sponges. Put a lot of plastic down on your floors, with newspaper to soak up the water, and don’t be afraid to wash everything down with lots of fresh water to remove residue.
It’s a messy job, but not really that hard, and you could do a fireplace in a weekend. I had at least 7 layers of paint on mine. They came out great.
Rock Miracle works the best because it is water soluble. I would use a plastic paint scraper and not a metal scraper because the metal can scratch or gouge the marble. For the last application (it took me about 3 applications because the paint was so thick), I used a teflon safe scrubby sponge dipped in water to clean/scrub the residual paint off.
You can’t use a heat gun because the marble is too cold and the paint will not melt.
If you use Rock Miracle, make sure you have plenty of ventilation and keep the kids out of the house. You need industrial gloves and good floor protection, i.e. lots of newspaper.
Try Rock Miracle. Take the precautions on the can very seriously. Everthing it touches gets ruined – with the exception of stone of course.