Home DIY

You could buy one and sell it on when you're done, I think there's a ready market for them on this thread alone.

The chemicals are a bitch, you end up with burnt arms/face and shoes covered in sticky paint. I got used to stripping stuff with a carbide scraper and chisels and after a few years experience I could strip a window frame bare in a couple of hours. The only problem is you catch the wood here and there, you always have to work with the grain and then you've got a lot of filling to do, plus the air is full of ancient paint chips and it's pretty physical. The IR gun is just magical by comparison, barely needs sanding after and almost never damages the wood.

I also have a paint stripper that's basically 2 carbide blades spinning on a disc, it's terrifying and you can destroy the wood in seconds, the razor sharp paint shards get flung everywhere at massive velocity and the machine eats it's own safety guards. You can strip the flats of a door in minutes but you still have to do the mouldings another way.

There were a few IR guns on eBay for £100 and there are a few make your own wiki's, it's only an IR bulb with a handle and safety guard but the difference will be the quality of the bulb and the output.