We have been renovating our old house for the past few years. This summer, I painted the exterior of the house. I tried every conventional method to remove 110 years of paint buildup, including hand scraping, pressure washing, wire brushing, sanding, and heat guns. Each of the paint removal tools sort of worked (eventually), but all the paint stripping tools all had the same problem: too slow!
I was then offered a Metabo paint remover by one of my neighbors. Almost all of the old paint was removed by this wonder tool. It did a beautiful job, but the real miracle is that the section shown here only took 20 minutes to do! With those other methods, it would have taken half a day.
The tool is a cross between an angle grinder, a biscuit joiner, and a portable plane. There are two replaceable carbide bits aproximately 3/4″ long on the circular head. They are rectangular. Since the head diameter is about 3 inches and my siding reveal is about 4-1/2 inches, I had to work it up and down as I worked down each board. One pass is all it takes, and you want to keep moving.
The head also has two blades on the sides that are perpendicular to the cutting surface. These remove paint from the bottom of the lap as you go. The tool also comes with a vacuum port, and I was able to hook it up directly to my shop vacuum and take care of a lot of the mess as I went.
Preparation is necessary before you can actually scrape. If you plan to use carbide tips on the wall, be sure to use a nail set on each wall section first. The machine will either cut off or rip out the nail if you hit one…neither of which is ideal. Before you start, adjust the depth of the cut. The Metabo is capable of removing a lot of wood if the depth is set incorrectly. Be sure to test it out on the back of the house first! It can leave swirl marks or rough spots (especially as the blades dull), so if you are picky, you may need to go over everything again with an orbital sander. I just let it go since I like a rougher look.
Considering the time savings, the Metabo paint remover is a bargain. Even my wife, who doesn’t usually encourage me to buy power tools, said, “We should just get one of those!”
