Stripping Paint from Hardware

Do you have hardware that has thick old crusty paint built up on it? Did you know there is an easy way to get this off?

The hardware on the desk that I am working on didn't have crusty paint but it had a dirt build up that was disgusting! A few months ago my nephew asked me if I wanted a crock pot that he had used to clean the old paint off of his kitchen hardware. He bought an older home and was redoing the kitchen. I had not heard of this crock pot method of cleaning hardware until now. This is the link that gives a great explanation of this method of cleaning. You can go here to read more on the crock pot stripping. 

Today I put my hardware in the crock pot and covered it with water and turned the temp knob to "high". After several hours I checked the hardware and it was clean. I poured the hot water off and laid my hardware on a towel to dry. After the hardware was dry I used Modern Masters Silver Metallic to paint them. 

The desk is coming along nicely - today I painted the base Silver Metallic and the drawers were painted with Mother Earth Dolphin. 
Mother Earth is a new paint line that Fresh is now carrying. This paint is silky and dries quickly with a beautiful smooth finish. Stop by and let us introduce you to this great product! We know you will love it as much as we do.

How to Strip a Desk Top

Yesterday I posted about a mahogany desk that I planned to strip the top and paint the bottom. So today I started the make over. I've posted a few times on how I strip my furniture and I am always researching different ways to take off paint or finish. Today I decided to take my sander and sand the top and get as much of the finish off as I could. Actually this worked really well. I used 100 grit sand paper on my orbital sander(the lower the number, the coarser the sand paper). Below is a picture of how the desk looked as I was sanding.

After I sanded for about 30 minutes almost all of the finish was removed. I then took my favorite stripper and painted it on the top to remove what little was left. The edge of the desk needed to be stripped too so I painted some of the stripper on the edge and used a steel brush and steel wool. There was a deep scratch that I smoothed out with the sander and I'm hoping it will not show once I start to add my stain. It feels smooth to the touch so I think it will be okay.

Once I had all of the finish removed I took Mineral Spirits and a soft rag to remove any remnants of the stripper. I am going to let the wood dry over night before I add the stain. Here are the products I used today to strip the desk top. 

I removed the hardware from the drawer fronts and cleaned the fronts with Simple Green. After these dried I applied Modern Masters Silver Metallic paint. The Modern Masters Metallic paint is as smooth as butter and I love painting with it. I'll post pictures tomorrow on my progress of this mahogany desk make over.