Thursday, March 31, 2005

Forecast for rain...

Not much work done today, as the anticipation of rain kept everyone cautious. The stripper sits overnight, a required dwell time to allow it to do it's thing. As it is a water based stripper, rain would neutralize the chemical reaction, so it wouldn't work.

As it turns out, it didn't rain. So we'll see how it goes tomorrow. If it doesn't rain, Norbu and Caen will be applying the stripper, so it will be stripping on Saturday.

Ani Rene has also planned to gather a team to begin scraping the Enlightenment Stupa on Saturday, for those of you who don't want to get too messy.

Since there aren't any photos to post today, I'll talk a little about the stripper we're using, for the benefit of those who might be interested.

We are using a product from Cathedral Stone:

http://www.jahnmortars.com/

It is water based, biodegradable, non-toxic, and very effective. The photos of our previous applications testify to that. It is taking two coats on all the Stupas so far, but that is almost 20 years of accumulated layers of paint we're removing. It is relatively easy to work with, spraying it on with an airless sprayer and then removing using scrapers and a power washer. We have also been using it under less than ideal conditions. On average the temperature has maxed out at around 50 degrees, and we've had lots of rain. A few days of stripper removal we worked in the rain. It has helped us tremendously in terms of saving man hours. We've nearly completely removed all the paint from the entire Stupa Park in only two weeks, which includes the learning curve and a few rain days where application couldn't take place.

The stripper is evidently a combination of water, alcohol and peroxide. It doesn't burn if it touches your skin (unless you let it dwell there, like when working with it all day) and rinses and cleans up with water. There is some sort of molecular engineering thing going on, so this isn't a mix you could render yourself. You can see the website for more information. Just wanted to give all interested in idea of materials we're using, in case you find yourselves in a similar situation. We can have the whole Park stripped, repaired and re-painted in the time it would have taken just to scrape one large Stupa.

Stay tuned for more updates!

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