Am I ok to use a brass wire wheel arbor on a power drill to remove paint from the stonework on my house? Or will it eat the stone away too much?

Sorry for total lack of relevance, but I figure someone on here is bound to know! I'm not keen on the mess of sandblasting or the toxicity of nitromours so looking at my options.

Ta much in advance!

Yes, but you will be an old man before it is finished. Try a steel wire wheel in a grinder, preferably a 9" one, then when you are fed up with that, ring a sandblasting company.

Pressure washer? Or too well stuck for that?

How much are you looking to get rid of?
You'll wish you'd got it sandblasted if it's a whole house.

I'd use a chemical paint stripper like Nitromors if it's just paint. Sandblasting is a bit OTT just to remove paint. You'll spend longer cleaning up than you think too.


I've just had (most of) my house sandblasted. Here's the front door. The stonework was hidden behind about 20mm of rendering which the blaster had off in about 15 mins. Don't underestimate the work necessary to clean up and finish the edges too...



Door

Thanks folks, all replies much appreciated!
It's the window surrounds and lintels on the front of an 1890s terrace house, so a fair bit of surface but not too daunting. Quite right a pressure washer will get rid of a lot of it, particularly on the ground floor where it's pealing off anyway. After that, it's either nitromors, wire wheel or sandblaster.

So, nobody thinks I'm going to get rid of too much stone with a wire wheel?

Anyone played with the sand blasting attachments for common and garden pressure washers? They any good?

I've heard of a technique that uses ice instead of sand for blasting. No idea if it's true, or usable in this application, but the advantage we were given is that there's no mess to clean up afterwards.

If you're worried about the sand, might be worth investigating?

Chris

I've used a steel wire cup brush to fetch limewash off brickwork but it was only a couple of yards, I wouldn't want to do much more. It cleans the brick up and doesn't do any damage but I needed to point up after.

I like the ice idea, though it sounds pretty specialist. Perhaps an unholy marriage of a pressure washer and a slushy machine?

I think after reading the above I'll pressure wash as much as I can off, then try nitromors and wire wheeling it and see what's most effective/less messy.

Thanks again folks!

i looked up the ice blaster idea - uses dry ice! Apparently it's much less damaging than sand and it sublimates on impact, penetrating the paint/dirt and expanding into gas underneath it. Looks expensive though!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA7n-Q4T8hc&NR=1