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  • Decoratingtrackworld – flaking emulsion
  • tron
    Free Member

    I’ve just stripped a load of Anaglypta with a steam stripper and a garden sprayer full of wallpaper remover solution. So far so good.

    In a few spots, the various coats of paint from over the years have come off with the wallpaper. Start picking at the edge and you start finding out that there are big chunks of paint that aren’t very stuck onto the coats below. And you soon end up with several square feet of paint peeled off.

    The paint that is sticking to the plaster seems to be bog basic emulsion. For all I know it might be the contract emulsion from when the place was first built. The paint that’s coming off is a good thickness of a couple of colours, and is fairly plasticy.

    My current plan is to scratch as much as possible off with a window scraper, and feather in any sharp edges where the paint’s still stuck down, then stick some primer over the top before putting emulsion on.

    Is there a better way of clearing the paint off? Is it likely that the steamer has done something to the various layers of paint and altered the adhesion? A few of the peeling spots are around areas where there were old unfilled holes and the steam was able to get into the plaster and blow it. Or is it more likely that the paint never stuck that well in the first place and I’m going to have to do the whole room 😯 ? The house was built late 1960s if that makes any odds on what paints might have been used over the years.

    scotroutes
    Full Member

    How about papering with lining paper then painting onto that? Might give you more even coverage (especially if there are multi-coloured layers) and would require less accurate “feathering”.

    tron
    Free Member

    I probably should have mentioned that I really don’t like lining paper. Other than the badly adhered paint, the walls are pretty decent.

    Having done a bit of car paintwork over the years, I’m happy I can manage to hide a couple of layers of paint under matte emulsion. I just don’t want the whole lot to start peeling off the walls once it’s painted. 😆

    The other odd thing is that I did a test patch today to see if the feathered edges did work, and if you started picking at the areas that had been painted, the old paint was a lot more plastic and peelable. Is it possible that the solvents in new paint leach into the old paint and soften it up?

    andyl
    Free Member

    Moisture would be my guess. Probably just the steam in your case but in my home office (rented house) the wall paint is flaking off very oddly in a way which seems to in line with brush strokes and I am sure it is down to the huge amounts of damp coming through the wall.

    I’d probably rub the walls down with something like a coarse scotch pad to remove any loose paint and then see how well it covers.

    twang
    Free Member

    It’s most likely the moisture that’s softened the paint. Let it dry and go brittle, scrape of all the loose, attacking it from different angles. Don’t try and rub the edges down as you would on car paint, it’ll make it peel, just a light rub all over and then, if you’re not lining, a coat of thin ish emulsion. Fill all the uneven bits with a wide joint filling blade and easyfil. Rub, paint and wait for it to crozzle* because you haven’t lined 🙂

    *you might get lucky depending on how much paste is left on the wall.

    HTH

    bigh
    Free Member

    How old is the house? Also the layer that’s left on after the rest peels off, does it leave a powdery chalky residue on your fingers if you drag your hand over it?

    jimbo45
    Free Member

    You have left the steamer on those bits of wall too long and too much heat has softened the paint underneath, depends how thick the old paint is and the size of area where the paint has come off, usually if its small you can skim the patches, if its quite large then full wall skim or lining paper is what i would recommend , impossible to say for sure as i dont know how thick the edges of the old paint are.

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