I've been thinking about ordering some soy gel to try, so appreciate this post!

I have some old kitchen cabinets -- definitely solid wood, but I'm not sure of the type of wood. I'd guess they're coated in polyurethane. I'd like to try soy gel on the cabinets *and* on the handles and hinges to remove the years of grime and (poly?) coating on them. Does anyone think or know soy gel would do the job? :)

I'm also curious about your "plastic wrap" comment. Is plastic wrap somehow used in the stripping process? The video I watched showed them 'painting' the soy gel on, waiting, and waiting some more, and then removing the layers of the gel goo and softened paint with a scraper.

This post was edited by party_music50 on Tue, Jan 1, 13 at 11:55

Hi,
I have heard nothing but positives about it, I have always been a heat gun+strong chemical guy, but I have my staircase railings to do, and that set of techniques isn't going to cut it. This adds more fuel to the fire to try the SoyGel stripper.
Casey

Count me in as a Soy Gel fan! There isn't a lot of trim left in my house but all of it was painted with layers and layers of paint. The most recent color was a brown that was almost black. I bought several of the caustic paint strippers and even the heat gun. What worked was Soy Gel. So much so that I bought a five gallon bucket! I am using it on wood trim, metal handles and hinges, items that I spray painted that didn't turn out right, and everything else that has paint on it that needs to come off.

I didn't use the plastic on it (placing plastic over the piece helps to keep the Soy Gel from drying out, making it easier to scrape off) and I had a contractor over to give me a quote on some work. He laid his hand on the trim and the paint and Soy Gel came off on his hand. He was ready to panic until he realized his flesh wasn't burning off. Of course, he had to know what it was that was removing the paint without removing his skin!

I'm a fan for life!

Does Soy Gel work on shellac? How do you dispose of it?

Thanks!!

It's biodegradable and cleans up with water - I'll try to post some before / after pics later. Still have some
Clean up where the paint really got stuck in the grain (Doug fir) but still a fan - pretty cool stuff.

SoyGel with plastic wrap on it - starting to lift paint

Cleaned up - first round of stripping

Holy cow Katy-Lou! I'm going to try that on the wretched mauve the previous owners coated all our lovely old wainscoting and doors/trim. It's rather thick so I'm interested in seeing how much penetration you get with the soy gel.
Thanks for adding the photos - that was a great show of its' abilities.
Ging

Thanks for the information, I'm definitely going to pick some up.

Does it work well on polyurethane?

Am thinking of trying this - questions though. What do you use to wash it off - just plain water? don't like having to buy expensive wash to get the stripper off.

How does it smell? If I don't use it up right away can it be stored or does it go bad? Citristrip can be stored almost indefinitely, this other product (forget the name) went bad within weeks and had to be thrown out.

Best to go to the source:

http://www.franmar.com/technical-tip-sheets.html

I cleaned up with just water per instructions on bottle. Worked well. And faint smell similar to TSP substitute. Very minimal.

And I have had my five gallon bucket for five months and it works as great as day one. I also have a small container of it that sits without a lid to inspire me to slather some on a hinge or a piece of trim whenever I walk by it and that also works like a charm!

Just wanted to put my praise in for Soy Gel, too. It works better than any other stripper I've used, and it also doesn't make me feel sick like the others! I generally slather it on thick and leave it for 24 hours, unless it's only a very thin coat that needs to be removed. It hasn't let me down yet. It is a little pricey and hard to find (I order mine from Amazon), but to me it's worth it because it makes the job so much easier.

We used Soy-Gel to strip very tough paint off the brick exterior of our home. There were multiple layers of paint and yes, it removed all of them. We love the stuff

Dang! How come everytime I come back to THS I discover another job I need to do. Soy-Gel on stair rails, Check!