Stripping paint from a cast iron fireplace

Hot Air Gun, paint stripper for emulsion, remove and get it dipped or shot blasted, rotary wire brush etc!

 

Don't know where you are, but there are firms who do mobile shotblasting, as long you can seal room they can do fireplace in situ.
Had a friend, she had a load of radiators & several fireplaces striped back, & someone else had all the oak beams in a barn cleaned.


http://www.mobile-sandblasting.co.uk/

Once you got fireplace stripped back, just need to blacklead it, for a perfect finish.

 

Or burnish it and seal it, think tung oil is used!

 

Seen it done with 3 in1 oil, didn't like at all, ended up with hightlighted silery area's, prefer the black lead finish buffed up myself.

 

Can be an absolute 'mare of a job if you try and DIY it without the right stuff.

Aren't there some effective paint-stripping chemical gels you can get these days - you slap it on, cover it with a sheet to keep it from drying out, and leave it for a goodly few hours?

Shot-blasting sounds good - the finish will be superb - but, man, messy. And I suspect costly if peeps come out and do it in situ.

Try a hot-air gun and see if the paint reacts. I doubt if emulsion paint will, but I'd also be surprised if it was emulsion paint (but who knows...)

I've tried wire brushing with an angle-grinder, and it's depressing how the paint seems to just be polished by the damn thing . You can dig a corner of the rotating wheel into the surface, but it's no simple task - takes an age.

I guess try in order: Hot air, chemicals and shot-blasting

 

Trouble with today's paint stripper, it's p*** poor compared to that we had a few years ago.
Dichloromethane (DCM) based paint stripper, is now only available to the professional painters now, it's deem too dangerous for diyer's to use.

Got Nilfisk pressure washer here, bought a sand blasting attachment for it, uses dry fine sand or other fine medium, actually quite good, no where as messy as shotblasting.