Review: Soyclean Paint Stripper

After finding out that Soygel is a nontoxic miracle for cleaning up my adhesive-caked heart of pine floor, I went out in search of cheaper-yet-effective brands of nontoxic solvents.

I ended up going with SoyClean Paint Stripper. At $31/gal, it is about half the price of Soygel. SoyClean is a liquid, which makes it a little harder to wrk with, but I got the hang of it pretty quickly. It does have a rather overpowering citrus scent to it. I'd rather smell th soybeans, personally. It works, but is not nearly as impressive on the adhesive as the the Soygel. As I have a gallon of it, I will be trying it next on the old paint splatters and varnish on my stairs. I think it will be able to handle that much better. I will report back after that experiment.

Back to square 2!

Today's mission-- to decide if I still want to sand and seal the floor, or just paint it. I see good reasons on both side of the debate (which is raging on inside my head), but I just cannot make the leap to "painting is good, I should just paint the floor." I know I'll be happy with it either way, but I'm not one to go into such important life decisions lightly.
Here's the test patch that I put Soygel on. This stuff rocks, and is totally non-smelly. I slathered it on last night, covered it with some plastic to keep it moist, and took 10 minutes to scrape and scrub the old adhesive and paint off. Pretty good for 10 minutes work , eh?