Stripping paint from baseboard moldings

OK, so after a little frustration it looks like I am starting to make some progress with stripping the paint off of the baseboards that were (needlessly I may add) painted in the house before we moved it. I have five long runs of the baseboards stripped and have found it not to be as easy as I thought it was going to be. I used a chemical stripper (StripEaze gel) and, initially, a plastic scraper to get most of the paint off. Of course, these moldings have been painted numerous times so I needed multiple coats of the stuff to make any dent in the paint. I then used some coarse steel wool and odorless mineral spirits to scrub out the paint that the stripper left behind. It is a pain, and I will have to stain the baseboards when I am done, but I think I am finally down to bare wood.

Let me just say that the odorless mineral spirits are the nuts. After having worked with the stinky stuff exclusively I think I will be spending the extra $2 to get the low-odor kind from now on. It is almost a pleasure to work with. I have quite a few more feet of baseboards to go before I can start to prep and stain them, but I still think this way is cheaper than buying all new molding. Plus it's pre-cut. No coping! Yeah!

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