Vent: My uncle swore by using a heat gun to strip old varnish

My uncle, who did this for 30 years, always told me a heat gun was the only way to strip old varnish without hurting the wood. He said chemical strippers were for people who didn't know better. So I tried it on a 1920s oak dresser I was fixing up. I spent a whole afternoon on it, and it worked, but it was so slow and I kept scorching the wood in spots. I had to sand those marks out forever. Last month, I got a good modern stripper, the kind that gels, and it took the varnish off a similar piece in about 20 minutes with no burns. I feel like I wasted so much time. Has anyone else moved away from the heat gun method for certain jobs?

3 comments

3 Comments

troystone2mo ago

Ever scorch a piece trying to follow old advice too?

black.laura2mo agoMost Upvoted

Oh yeah, following old advice... my friend totally ruined a nice cutting board last month trying to season it with some weird oil his grandpa swore by. It never dried right and got all sticky and gross.

gonzalez.wesley1mo ago

Here's the thing nobody talks about with heat guns - the age of the varnish matters a lot. Old shellac based stuff from the 20s and 30s melts way different than the polyurethane people used later on. Your dresser was probably coated with something that needed a different touch than what your uncle learned on. I stripped a 1950s table last year and the heat gun turned that varnish into sticky glue that just smeared everywhere. The gel stripper cut through it like butter.