# How to paint over old contact cement/Adhesive?



## Leah Frances (Jan 13, 2008)

Monday I started my bath remodel! Today, I pulled some crappy formica-like stuff off the walls. It was glued to the old bead board wainscoting. While it is kind of a cool blue color I want to paint the wainscoting. It is not tacky to touch (nor was it stuck to 90% of the formica). Do I have to scrape it before I paint?










BTW, the formica (visible in the far left of the pic) was clearly full of formaldehyde - pulling it off made my eyes water and made me smell like fetal pig.


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## slickshift (Aug 25, 2005)

Yes
Scrape, sand, prime, fix/fill, feather sand, re-prime, paint, paint
(with clean/wipe/tack in between each step)


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## Leah Frances (Jan 13, 2008)

I think it's time for one of my favorite tools: Infrared Paint Striper!


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## Nestor_Kelebay (Jun 17, 2008)

I remove contact cement from plaster every time I replace a counter top. Typically the old Formica backsplash will be contact cemented to the plaster walls.

You'll find that if you paint either Naptha (camping fuel) or lacquer thinner onto the contact cement, you'll be able to scrape the contact cement off a smooth surface quite easily.

What I do to make a sharp scraper is to grip a single edge razor blade in the jaws of a pair of needle nose style locking pliers, and use that tool (held upside down) to shave the softened contact cement off the plaster.

If your surface is quite rough, I expect you could still use naptha or lacquer thinner to soften the contact cement and scrape most of it off with a paint scraper.


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