Water floss tooth brush or mini pressure washer for cleaning stripper paste?

[floydvoid]

Hello,

I am working on stripping out my new OT double ender.

I have been trying out different methods of stripping in order to avoid the “sanded out” look that the ribs take on after a challenging revarnish and the cement like residue from the ez strip/ready strip paste.

I hate having old pockets of that paste hanging around in the cracks under the ribs!

I am heat gun and scraping the boat then I’ll use the paste stripper to get the last bit of residue. The heat gun works well but it does not get everything.

To clean the tiny cracks of stripper- has anyone tried some kind of mini pressure washer - like a waterpik toothbrush or a cordless drill style pressure washer?
Would one of those water floss tooth brushes be powerful enough on full blast to clear scum?

 

[MGC]

I have not used those, but I would suggest that you have a way to go before you need to worry.
It's been my experience that once you have the hull quite nicely cleaned out, a thorough soft brush cleaning with TSP followed by a thorough cleaning with Snappy Teak nu will deliver quite amazing results. Snappy seems to pull out gunk that was not obvious until you use it.
Having said that, I have yet to find a way to restore a canoe without a whole lot of sanding.

 

[Rollin Thurlow]

While the stripper is still wet and not dried out, wash the boat with a bristled scrub brush and lots soap and water. the soap will keep the stripper from gumming up. Forget the waterpik and use one of the smaller size pressure washers. The pressure washer will not destroy the wood unless you hold it right close to the wood and hold it there for a while.
Back in the day I use to take the freshly stripped canoes to a local car wash and power washed them out with the soap and a clean rinse. It did a jim dandy job but it wasn't long before I was exiled from every car wash in the county under threat of being car washed myself!

 

[Maxtoon]

I know this strategy is low-tech, but I have had very good results taking a handfuls of sawdust in a gloved hand and using it to scrub still wet paint stripper residue. It does not scratch, gets into corners and details, and is fairly easy to blow out with compressed air to clean seams. Also makes it easy to dispose of stripper. The sawdust should be a bit course - like you get from a planer and not finer than from a tablesaw. Softwood seems to work better, but I have had good luck with both softwood and hardwood.

 

[Andre Cloutier]

After having been banned from local carwashes myself for large deposits of mud, sand and silt after a good Enduro ride, I use Mikes method and immediately after stripping scrub using super hot water and tsp with a moderately stiff plastic brush, followed by a clean water rinse. Not sure why there would be any residue left over. Having said that, i use old skool nasty stripper than nothing can resist.