Paint Stripper

[needsmorecowbel]

Happy belated Liz Day people! I have a mate who is trying to refurbish old drum kits (Ludwig kits) and he bought one off eBAY. Anyway the drum kit has been painted on the inside of the bass drum shell and he has started to attack it with paint stripper with some success. Is this a horrible horrible idea to strip the paint inside the drum? I would have thought that you wouldn't want to put those kind of chemicals anywhere near tone wood or instrument timbers? I thought that dong so would be similar to putting metho or turps on the wood. Drying it out and damaging it further down the track...

[matthew]

It's a drum, not an instrument

[needsmorecowbel]

What did you make your first double bass out of Matthew?

[needsmorecowbel]

I like to call the drums an instrument when you pay 1500 just for the bass drum lol

[kiwigeo]

It's a drum, not an instrument

I would consider the drum the oldest musical instrument known to man.

[Puff]

Paint stripper may have developed since I last used it about 20 years ago but from lessons learnt then I would not have it anywhere near a piece of wood I had regard for.
In this situation I would be looking at room temperature scraping or sanding.

[rocket]

Yay Mathew,, Havin a chuckle over here!!!

[DarwinStrings]

I imagine the stripper would be like most things on wood, they do not penetrate deeply. Provided he cleans it well with water (most strippers are water soluble) then sands the surface it should be fine. I am not sure why you think "metho or turps" would be a problem either Stu as varnishes as well as oils are full of turps and shellac is full of metho, I clean wood especially some glue joints with naphtha which is more volatile than both metho and turps I reckon.

Jim

[needsmorecowbel]

Cheers for clearing that up

[charangohabsburg]

I agree that paint strippers don't affect wood too much. They are designed to remove paint from wood without destroying it. Care should be taken though with using paint strippers on particle boards they could affect the glue which holds the wood chips together.

Excessive use of solvents on already bare wood surfaces can "dry" them out and lighten them up. No great penetration though, just as Jim said.

It's a drum, not an instrument

This remark makes me believe that Matthew believes that a double bass is not a drum.

[kiwigeo]

I imagine the stripper would be like most things on wood, they do not penetrate deeply. Provided he cleans it well with water (most strippers are water soluble) then sands the surface it should be fine. I am not sure why you think "metho or turps" would be a problem either Stu as varnishes as well as oils are full of turps and shellac is full of metho, I clean wood especially some glue joints with naphtha which is more volatile than both metho and turps I reckon.

Jim

The worse meths will do is leech out some of the oils in certain woods. Turps.......form my experience sometimes the stuff contains traces of oil and I tend to keep it away from my tonewood.

[DarwinStrings]

You have quoted my statement there Martin but I think you may be talking about a different product to the one I am talking about when you refer to "turps".

Jim

[kiwigeo]

You have quoted my statement there Martin but I think you may be talking about a different product to the one I am talking about when you refer to "turps".

Jim

Possibly.....the turps in my shed is from Mitre 10 while the meths is IMS grade from a French Polishing supply house. Ive found that Shellite (nearest thing to napthta here) also seems a bit oily in some batches I've used.

[kiwigeo]

This remark makes me believe that Matthew believes that a double bass is not a drum.

A double bass is just a big wooden tub with a big long handle sticking out of it.

[needsmorecowbel]

I think that was proven by Lillian's Banjo Bass

[matthew]

Most drum shells are made of plywood. Nice plywood perhaps, but still plywood. And then covered with some form of plastic skin.

So I don't think think paintstripper or turps or metho will do any damage to the wood on those ludwig shells. An alternative is to use a heat gun to soften the paint and scrape away.

[Kim]

You have quoted my statement there Martin but I think you may be talking about a different product to the one I am talking about when you refer to "turps".

Jim

Possibly.....the turps in my shed is from Mitre 10 while the meths is IMS grade from a French Polishing supply house. Ive found that Shellite (nearest thing to napthta here) also seems a bit oily in some batches I've used.

Pure gum turpentine is good stuff, great for making your own wax based polishes and varnishes and the like. It bears no real resemblance to 'mineral' turpentine you will find in 4lt bottles at bunnies and m10 which is used to clean the Wattle Estopol that Martin will be using on his lute from those cheap, nasty, Chinese paint brushes.

As to Shellite being the 'nearest' thing to Naphtha that we have in AU, I was under the impression that they are in fact one and the same, Tomato, Tomarto, at least according to this site they are anyhow....: http://fuel.papo-art.com/

Cheers

Kim

[kiwigeo]

You have quoted my statement there Martin but I think you may be talking about a different product to the one I am talking about when you refer to "turps".

Jim

Possibly.....the turps in my shed is from Mitre 10 while the meths is IMS grade from a French Polishing supply house. Ive found that Shellite (nearest thing to napthta here) also seems a bit oily in some batches I've used.

Pure gum turpentine is good stuff, great for making your own wax based polishes and varnishes and the like. It bears no real resemblance to 'mineral' turpentine you will find in 4lt bottles at bunnies and m10 which is used to clean the Wattle Estopol that Martin will be using on his lute from those cheap, nasty, Chinese paint brushes.

As to Shellite being the 'nearest' thing to Naphtha that we have in AU, I was under the impression that they are in fact one and the same, Tomato, Tomarto, at least according to this site they are anyhow....: http://fuel.papo-art.com/

Cheers

Kim

Youre correct Kim for all intents and purposes Shellite is naptha but the oiliness in some of the stuff Ive used suggests the quality of the product may not be the same as in US....

[DarwinStrings]

Yep that's the one I use Kim but I get the feeling that many of the oil finishes I have used (various brands of Danish oil or Teak oil etc) use mineral turps as the solvent so I don't see a problem with mineral turps either on wood other than what Martin has mentioned, that they may carry some mineral oil. I use Diggers shellite from Bunnies and clean all sorts of stuff with it including metal and have never noticed any left over oily residue after it evaporates but I reckon that does not mean it could never have a bit of mineral oil in it.

Jim

[Kim]

but the oiliness in some of the stuff Ive used suggests the quality of the product may not be the same as in US....

I've not ever had that issue with the Diggers stuff I get from bunnies Marty. In fact Shellite is 'the' go to product for removing oils and wax from wood. I wonder if you could have struck a mislabeled batch? White Spirit certainly appears the same, in fact it 'is' Shellite/Mobilite/Naphtha, or whatever you wish to call it on the day, with a retarder added (possibly oil based) to reduce the flash point and render it more safe for use in the dry cleaning industry.

Cheers

Kim

[Tonxi]

It's a drum, not an instrument

I would consider the drum the oldest musical instrument known to man.

Dangerous ground here. You are one step away from calling drummers, musicians!

My Tama Royal Star kit is aluminium on the outside, fiberglass on the inside and wood between. It has an awesome sound (thwock, thwock, thwock not dat, dat, dat.). I spent months searching to find a kit with that sound.
I think it was made in the 70s.

[kiwigeo]

but the oiliness in some of the stuff Ive used suggests the quality of the product may not be the same as in US....

I've not ever had that issue with the Diggers stuff I get from bunnies Marty. In fact Shellite is 'the' go to product for removing oils and wax from wood. I wonder if you could have struck a mislabeled batch? White Spirit certainly appears the same, in fact it 'is' Shellite/Mobilite/Naphtha, or whatever you wish to call it on the day, with a retarder added (possibly oil based) to reduce the flash point and render it more safe for use in the dry cleaning industry.

Cheers

Kim

I only use Shellite labelled material. A bad batch..quite possible, IMHO its an assumption that QC on these products is same as in other countries. The MSDS's for half these products arent worth the paper theyre printed on.....you never know exactly what is in the product.

[Matt Bach]

I use a bit of naptha for cleaning some things, but I just get the little cans of lighter fluid (ie zippo stuff). It seems really clean (and is easy to deal with in the small tin). I've noticed Diggers brand shellite seems oily too, and smells a bit different ( ). If I can find it I'll use the Sceneys brand, which seems closer to the lighter fluid. White spirit cleans almost everything (which I guess is why it's used for dry cleaning) but it seems smeary afterwards. I realise it might all be the same chemical(s) but they do seem to have varying degrees of extra crud in them. That said I may have bad or mislabeled batches too (I haven't bought more to test, probably won't).

I'd like to know where I could get nice clean naptha in bulk though...

[needsmorecowbel]

I spent about 2 years trying to put a really nice classy jazzy kit together...then i found Zildjian's "Special Dry" Series Cymbals. Cymbals are so dry people getting dehydrated at small venues

This is a good demo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BPGaKIl ... ure=relmfu

[Kim]

I'd like to know where I could get nice clean naptha in bulk though...

http://www.oilchem.com.au/products/solvents/solvent-x55

http://www.peakoil.com.au/solvents_solventx55.html

Diggers brand is re-branded Recasol R55

http://www.recochem.com.au/index.php/pr ... _shellite/

Not understanding the "oily" description because it is 100% fluorocarbons and its used to remove oil and wax. As mentioned it is possible that some white spirit went through the packaging process and was mislabeled as "shellite". White spirit is the very same product with an added retarder to increase the flash point, so I suppose it is possible that a mistake was made..or more cynically, perhaps it was because the products 'are' essential the same but for the retarder that some half arsed production manager intentionally ordered a substitution when they had ran short of R55 at the retail packaging plant?? What ever the issue was, the stuff I have now in my shed, a 4lt container of Diggers brand from Bunnies, evaporates off immediately leaving 'no' trace of residue whatsoever.

As for easy handling and to prevent contamination from exposure to air, I decant shellite and metho into aluminum fuel bottles used by back packers. Mine are Swiss made Sigg brand and are really good, but unfortunately no longer made by that company as they are not a pressure container as has become so popular with MRS stoves. But there are other Sigg knock offs much cheaper than the originals.

The feature to look for in any of these bottles is in the cap. It has two holes drilled on opposite sides of the plastic thread not far below the seal. The smaller of the two acts as a breather and the larger of the two, indicated externally by a dot mark in the molding, acts as a spout. When you want product, you simply loosen the cap about half way and then pour an easily controlled flow from the spout without excessive exposure of the product to the air. This is not only good for the products shelf life, it conserves the products because you only take what you need instead of glugging it all over a rag, and because the bottles are aluminum or stainless, its no real hazard if you drop or knock them in the work shop and the loop in the top makes them easy to hang up and out of the way.

Just a warning, a lot of these bottles are lined inside to make them suitable for drinking water..I am not certain that some fuel would not react with this lining. My old Siggs are fuel specific and are not lined, I would recommend looking finding a knock off that is unlined and if the cap does not have the holes, drill them.

Here is an image of a Sigg 'fuel' bottle I found on the net....note it is plain ali so you know its for fuel, I painted mine red for shellite and blue for metho...you can see the dot mark on the lid indicating where the pour hole is located.

Siggbottle.jpg (51.25 KiB) Viewed 23263 times

Cheers

Kim