The Woodpecker EP 313 - How to Strip chairs with baking soda 

I love it when she's able to help me, but some time two in the shop is too much. But I have a big projet that I'm postponing for several months now, on this project I will need her help. So I'm expecting to be with her in the shop next week 😁

It was for a member of the family... After we told them how long everything took, they game us $300 more, we were pretty happy. It's why I often say how long I worked on something, this can guide someone else to figure the work involved.

Thank you. Yes this took WAY longer that I was anticipating

Thank you very much. I had no clue it was such a job, but the end product was very satisfying.

For me, I would have really waited until I could do it outside. I hate cleaning when I could have avoided it. Spring is so close.

Thank you. I wanted to share my experience, so like you said other people can make their own decision. I won't do this inside anymore, but I will probably do it again in warmer weather. All those nooks ans carnies were a nightmare, the soda was able to remove every little corner without any problem. But like I showed, it not for every type of wood, I saw after, that more ceramic nozzle were available, with different hole sizes, maybe by switching the nozzle it can do a different job? I don't know? I'm not sure a chemical stripper would have worked as good, but one thing is sure it would have took WAY longer, this was still pretty fast, But I'm glad Renée helped me this was a WAY bigger job that what I anticipated....

It would be less dusty that's for sure. If those chairs didn't had that much nooks and crannies I would have done this diferently

Yes those type of chairs are definitely a lot of work no matter how you go about it. Congratulations finishing those.

Lucky for me she's happy with way less than being in the Bahamas 😉

A real one, but at least it made the sanding in hard to reach places easy, but the mess was incredible, never again inside.

Renée is a big part of all my adventures, she's so amazing. I will never do that inside again, and by showing it to all my viewers, they will make their own decision if they want to do that inside their shop. I wish I had a special place for finishing, but my shop is not big enough. About 20% is used for the garden shed, but I still store some clamps and plywood there. This part is so full that we have to get the lawn tractor out each time we need to get something out...

I really don't know? all the people who I talked to said that using sand is way to agressive on wood, so I didn't even try it. Reusing the soda was a real money saver, even if it was breaking down. A bag is 50lbs ($80 Canadian) and the container contain 15lbs, that was emptied in 20 minutes. I estimated that Renée blasted for 20 to 25 hours, this would have cost an arm if we had only used fresh soda... The stripping performance was not noticeable, but the refilling time was. Fresh soda escape from the funnel like inside an hourglass but the fine one always got stuck in the small hole... I wanted to share my experience so all my subscribers can see how it's done and make their own decision if it's worth it for them.

When I was a mechanic, we used a sand blaster for cleaning heavily grunged parts. We had to be very careful that we didn't score into the metal. What Alain said. Sand would eat your wood up, and I suspect that it would erode the soft fibers more easily leaving you with more sanding to do

LOL, you are in a real good mood. But jokes apart, Renée is fantastic, with her this took half the time and I was super happy about it, I really was not expecting this to took so long.

@@LgosseuxDbois-TheWoodpecker She certainly is! By the way, this was actually a really helpful video for me since I have to strip some paint/rust from some (very) old tractor panels -- as part of a restoration. I was looking at soda blasting, but had never considered how much eye protection you'd also need. So I think it might be the dreaded paint stripper for me again (one of my most hated chemicals). In fact I hate it so much that I'd probably pay someone else to do -- except that I don't trust anyone else to be sufficiently careful! Sigh.

Yes you need a lot of protection, especially the eyes. If it's done outside, the fine dust that fly everywhere is not a so big issue. But I understand, it always seem that no one beside us can make the meticulous job that we want, so like you I do my own repairs/restauration.

Renée didn't see any noticeable difference in the efficacy of the soda. But like I said it became harder and harder to refill the tank with fine soda, I wish it would have a bigger refill hole, but it's a really un-expensive soda blaster so maybe a high end one has a bigger refill hole?