A few years ago I decided to slather on some latex paint onto an old desk while painting the room the same color with the same paint. The desk was old, had a finish that I think is actually a wood grain painted onto pine. It looks artificial. Now I decided to remove the paint, have been using a gel stripper. Most of the paint bubbled up and came off, but some of it is melting and making a very thin layer of turquoise (my lovely paint color) residue across the wood. The old finish has kept it's wood grain look for the most part but the stripper has brought up brown finish color along with my turquoise coming off. Most of the old finish varnish seems to be off but the wood has an almost waxy feel to it. Does anyone have a clue what I can do to get the remaining turquoise paint off with out continuing to smear it into the wood where it almost seems to be bonding? Thanks for ideas; at this point I've given up and come inside after hours of scraping so far.

Wow, that is a stumper then. I really have no other suggestions. Myself, I'd be leery of putting poly over it to hold it down, I'd be thinking the poly would lift up too, or crack and craze? Dunno. Had a similar experience recently. Freebie little lamp I got, perfect shape for a bedside but it was black and I wanted it cream. Did everything right and there was one tiny spot that the primer and paint just kept curling up and cracking off of and I just can not get it fixed. Guess you could always try the poly, if you can get the topcoat to cling long enough to apply it?

Well, here's a question for you--are you intent on getting the beams down to the wood or would you be content for them to just LOOK like wood? An exterior full color stain--not the transparent stain--would work really well. You don't have to remove the paint--just stain right over it. I've done this a couple times--on a barn that was painted green. Used an exterior stain right over the paint and it worked out SO great. Didn't have to restain it for 10 whole years! Today's stains are gell-type stains so no dripping. I think this would be the easiest thing to do. I also did something like this in a rental property many years ago and it looked great.

Not sure exactly what this stuff is, but the MSDS and other sources indicate that it mostly water, which could be problematic interacting with your newly stripped surface. A picture would help, but you can also do a couple of experiments. In a small area try rinsing the stripped surface with real mineral spirits or paint thinner (make sure it's listed as flammable on the label) and 0000 steel wool or a green scotchbrite pad. Also try the same thing with methanol and with your paint stripper. I'm betting the white stuff will disappear with one of them. I like methanol for the final cleanup after a methylene chloride (dichloromethane) based stripper. (Work with lots of ventilation and an appropriately labeled respirator, obviously) It may just be residual paint that was relatively transparent when wet but turned white on drying. If so, keep stripping. It often takes three scrub and rinse steps after all obvious paint is gone to get rid of the haze-- and you never completely get rid of it, but it does then disappear when the piece is finished, just like when wet. You'll want to test in a non-obvious area. If you're going to use a water based finish (I wouldn't) after stripping you may want to use scotchbrite pads rather than steel wool so that you don't end up with rusty spots in your final finish from tiny bits of residual steel wool.