Evening all

What’s the best way to strip paint off of copper radiator pipes? Can I use something like nitrous or will that destroy the solder as well?

Thanks 🙂

I would scrape it off and emery to polish. Would doubt the paint would be well stuck down.

How much do you need to do ?

I scrape of as much as possible with an old knife of paint scree, then use cleanfit strips for what’s left.

You might get most of it off but getting a decent finish on the copper will be a pita.

What are you trying to achieve?

Probably about 3 metres all said & done of multiple coats of emulsion/gloss.

[dumbmodeon]What do you mean by a paint scree as nothing comes up on Google, did you mean scraper?

It’s purely aesthetic. All the piping in the front room is exposed & would rather have the look copper pipes then the aforementioned.

Yes, iPhone autocorrect.

Meant to say, old knife or paint scraper.

But if I needed to do 3m I would get a plumber in to replace it with new copper.

Cleaning off that amount will take forever and will end up looking pretty crap anyway.

My method is ok for cleaning off paint to solder a joint, but it’s no good for creating a decorative finish.

Got a heat gun?

Paint stripper should be fine but you could use a heat gun well away from the joints, although with the heating off the water will be nice and cool so will protect the pipe from overheating.

Put a flame/heat proof soldering matt behind the pipe to protect walls/skirting.

Thanks for the replies 🙂

No heat gun yet although one is on the list for the bannisters but that’s a job for another day. I do have a pot of nitromors in the shed but I was worried about it eating the solder.

Stripper won’t eat the solder. Why on earth would it do that? Just brush Nitromors on it, scrape off the softened paint and wash off.

I presume that you haven’t used Nitromors for a few years as the newer formulations are no where near as good as the old stuff.

I’d be tempted to replace the sections rather than strip the paint off. It’s a long and tedious job and you never get it all off especially near the wall.
If you are going to strip the paint off then try using mesh strip to remove the paint. Trying to get a nice finish on the pipe afterwards will take some work and probably need to finish with wire wool.

If it’s just the pipes coming up from the floor boards then just get some snap covers

There speaks (or posts) a man of experience!