paint removal

There are two types of "stripper." There is a gell type and a thin liquid type. You might pick up a small can of each. The gell type is best painted on with a bristle brush (the nylon type would probably melt--if you don't have a bristle brush which you don't mind ruining, then you can smear it on with a putty knife). Let the gell sit for a few minutes, after which time the whole mess can be scraped off with the putty knife. The thin liquid stripper can be used to get off the last remains, by dipping a piece of steel wool (not the kitchen variety, but rather, the painter's variety) in the liquid and then scrubbing.

You mentioned "window siding," and i'm not sure what you mean by that. If this is paint on a plastic type of siding, you will have problems, as the stripper could warp or even melt plastic. Stripper will also burn your skin. You can use rubber gloves, but, again, stripper can melt them. I've done a lot of stripping, and i do it with bare hands. I keep a bucket of really cold water near by, and plunge my hands in it when the stripper starts to burn the skin, then wipe my hands on an old towel or rag, and dip them in the water again.

No matter how you cut it, stripping paint is a nasty job.

Latex paint can be scraped while being heated with a heat gun. Plan to follow up with sandpaper. This another trick to not use on plastic.

Setanta,
Stripping paint with bare hands can't be good for you
Butyl rubber gloves should be resistant to most paint strippers; they are black (occasionally red) and usually come up most of the way to your elbow. I'm pretty sure you can find them at most hardware stores, although we get ours through Fisher Scientific (www.fishersci.com). (As a chemist, I use these gloves in the lab when working with caustic baths).

Cheers, Boss, thanks for providing the lady with a good tip to save her hands. Yeah, we did it bare-handed . . . foolish youth. The household variety of gloves we tried from time to time never held up, and it was far worse when one of those melted into the skin than it was to simply keep a bucket of cold water handy. We often used a stripping bath, for dunking an entire piece of furniture. The bare handed antics only applied to the last clean up part of the job. Unpleasant nonetheless . . .

I need advice on how to remove many layers of paint from my kitchen cabinets. The house is about sixty years old and the paint is so thick it's keeping the cabinets from closing. Sanding would be difficult because I'm severly arthritic.