I had a flash of brilliance the other day.

I’ve been putting off removing the rest of the vinyl because…well…it’s a heck of a lot of work. Not that I’m opposed to work, but the last time I removed vinyl I removed a whole lot of skin from my hands as well. The wood is literally dotted with my blood in quite a few spots.

The problem is with a heat gun I’m only able to warm up a fairly small spot at a time. I’m only able to remove 2-3″ of vinyl at most at a shot. It’s really rough on my hands.

So while sitting outside in the sun I thought “Hmmm…black paint…I bet if I put this outside in the sun it’ll loosen things up quickly.”

I was correct. It took me nearly three hours to do 2/3 of a side with the heat gun. It took me 15 minutes to do the same amount of removal by putting it in the sun.

It’s now 99% stripped. There were a few pieces I didn’t get because they were over the nails, and those parts always give me grief. I’ll work on that later.