A tool we don't like!

We rented a professional water pressure spray-gun, in an attempt to spray the paint off the concrete walkway. The plan was to chip off/get rid of the paint, and then stain the bare concrete (to save us having to buy paint -- we already had bought stain). The spray-gun loaned to us by a friend (which I talked about earlier) chipped bits of paint off, but it was a slow process. Two separate neighbors, and the rental shop, assured us that the professional version would gouge out the concrete itself, if we weren't careful with our aim.

It runs on gas, starting with a pull-rope like a lawn mower, and much louder. It's a lot more powerful than the "amateur" version, and comes with four different nozzles (3350 units of pressure, whatever that means -- the amateur one is about half that). The nozzles vary the shape of the water (from a wide 75° angle ring, through 40° and 25° to a pinpoint) and the force of the water (with pinpoint being enough to gouge concrete). (The fourth nozzle was labeled "chemical" and I didn't figure out what shape that was, but from its position in the row, it was less forceful than the widest-angle nozzle).

Curiously, no paint chipped. Or very little did. And Andrew, the Operator, said it felt dangerous and rather unpleasant to use, so he stopped trying after only a few minutes. I think we ran the thing for less than half an hour, in fact.

On the other hand, we loooove the amateur spray-gun, which will also take off paint (more slowly than the other) but without the feeling that it might leap out of your hands at any moment and scour off your skin.

The professional (rentable) high pressure water spray-gun is the first tool we haven't liked.