Stripping The Trunk Canvas

Finally, it's time to remove that hideous pink painted canvas. I started this the other day but didn't have  anyone to take pictures, so today I will post a description of how to go about removing the canvas from your trunk restore project.

First I took a razor knife and ran it around the edges of each panel. I tried to slide the razor knife under the trim of the steam trunk without cutting into the trim itself. I used a cheap razor knife I purchased from the dollar store and it seemed to work fine. You could probably use a sharp knife for this but I like the flex of the razor knife. Being flexible, it helped to get into the tight spaces. When using a razor knife try to make sure your other hand is behind the blade, and try to cut away from you so you don't have an accident. Unlike the picture below, I like to live dangerously. I suppose once I take a trip to the emergency room that will cure me of this nasty habit.

Slide the razor knife under the edges of the trunk trim.

After you run the razor knife around the edges of the steam trunk, take a paint scraper and start pulling up the canvas from the trunk. Some of it will come off very easily, other pieces will be much more difficult. Try not to gouge the wood while you do this, and always try and scrape with the grain of the wood.

Try to lift the edges of the canvas and loosen it up a bit.

Going with the grain of the wood start removing the canvas.

The bottom panel came up pretty easily but it looks like there may have been some water damage at one time. This helped to loosen the ugly pink painted canvas. The center panel of the trunk was a little more difficult to remove.

Take a putty knife or paint scraper to the more stubborn parts. Remember to scrape with the grain of the wood, and try be extra careful not to gouge the wood with your scraper

I took a larger putty knife and tried to scrape off the more stubborn canvas. I plan on stripping most of the canvas off with the putty knife, the little bit that's left I'll try and remove with a fine sand paper. When I get to that point I'll post the pictures and add them to this tutorial.

This is how far I got after 1 hour and 45 minutes. I did get all the bottom panels all the way around.

This is how far I got after 1 hour and 45 minutes of scrapping. I'll be doing this throughout the week and post some pix of the end result when the paint and canvas are completely removed.

I'll add the 1 hour 45 minutes it took to do this to the overall project time and also add 1 dollar to the project cost for the razor knife I purchased.  I now have 12 hours and 12 dollars and some change invested into this project.

Project time for this post : 1 hour 45 minutes
Total time spent on project so far : 12 hours
Total project cost so far : $12.64 USD

For some other tips on removing the canvas and paint from a steam trunk, click on the paint removal and canvas removal tags at the bottom of the post.