Bartoline Paint Predator Heavy Duty and Varnish Stripper 500 ml, Professional Strength, Non-Caustic Remover for Wood, Metal and Masonry

Have put off stripping a 90 year old solid oak front door for the past 30 years. Finally got around to it. Used a heat gun first on about ten layers of paint but it still left a lot so bought this stripper. Did as it says on the tin and applied a thick coat as recommended in the instructions and left it for an hour. Within fifteen minutes I could see it was working so left it for an hour and applied a second coat. Again I left it for about half an hour and I was greatly impressed that the paint had gone to a paste that I could scrape off before it dried. I then used detergent and water on it and it had worked a treat, ready to be sanded. The smell was ok and all in all I found it good value and good quality.

It works but you need to leave it on for over an hour at least and it’ll only strip one coat off at a time. Not as effective as the old type of paint strippers but it does work eventually. I had to do 4 applications to strip some heavily overpainted copper pipes.

Very good and patience needed as it seems to strip paint in layers, so 9 bottles have been bought to do a flight of 13 steps.

Ease of use and removal, no strong lingering odours

Specatularly ineffective. It struggled to remove the top level of paint from a village noticeboard I am renovating, let alone several layers. Expensive too at 1lt per sqm, so even if it worked it would be very poor value for money. After doing a bit of research on-line, it turns out that the chemical that used to be in paint stripper to loosen paint has now been removed for health and safety reasons. So, regardless of their brand or name, all domestic paint strippers are the basically the same composition and are pretty useless. The same research suggested using a heat gun which I'm now doing - saves mess, time, money, and it actually works.

So, I did read the testimonials, but thought it was still worth giving it a go. Can't be that bad, can it? Well, it's not very good at handling a tough lacquer/varnish on my wood conga drum. The best it would do after leaving overnight was to soften the coating, making it reasonably easy to shave off. I'm sure it will work fine with paint but bear in mind that when I say it it softened the varnish, I don't mean bubbled and blistered. I really do just mean softened, hence the 'shaving' description rather than scraping. A sharp blade was needed. That's it, really, just a word of caution if its varnish you need to strip.

Good for removing paint from diecast model it will remove 90% of paint . I have not used caustic so can not tell if good all not. I put diecast in to tub of stripper overnight wash off with water and wire brush, pick till paint as gone good clean up

Wish it was stronger and worked faster, but it does what it says, strips paint. I used it on some brake calipers I was refurbishing, it worked, but took a few coats. Tried on other painted metal, and again it worked, just need to be patient. Keep it covered overnight.

Even with multiple thick applications, some sitting for over an hour, I got zero satisfaction removing old polyurethane from wooden doors.

Worked well on glass paint but not on oak wood polish . Ordered to makeover dark polish to natural wood but so disappointed with the results even after 4 applications