Do you see that? Do you? That, my friends, is bare wood after countless layers of paint (many with lead, I am certain) were removed. Do you know how long that took? About 2 minutes. No kidding. Do you know how much muscle was required to remove it? Barely any. Seriously. We got our
Speedheater late last week but had made prior arrangements to go camping and just tried it out this afternoon upon our return.
If you read earlier posts, you'll know that I found out about an American-made version from a This Old House post and then learned it was not as sturdy or as well-made as this Swedish, original version. I ordered it for about $400 plus shipping and had it two days later. It comes with the Speedheater itself as well as two scrapers and some holding brackets.
I think I was most impressed when Tim used it below on the porch floor. This thing melted off layers upon layers of paint effortlessly. I gotta tell you, I spent many, many hours a few summers ago trying to do unsuccessfully by hand what this thing did in seconds. It is so amazing. Even better (oh, yes, it gets better), it makes no noxious fumes, no lead dust, and only requires some gloves. Easy peasy lemon squeazy. I honestly can't wait to paint the house. Yeah, that's right - I just said that I can't wait to paint the house.
Soooooo cool. While that little piece of the porch floor above took longer than the clapboards - mostly due to the many, many layers of paint - when I asked Tim how long it took to do the whole strip above the stairs, he remarked, "Less than a beer's worth." In real-time, I think that means about 20 minutes. Seriously cool, folks. So, here we go. I'm off to get the paint tomorrow and we'll just start one side at a time. I think the biggest obstacles are finding staging to reach the highest parts of the house and figuring out which parts will be which color. Seriously. So cool. Seriously.
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