The back story. You can skip this part if you want.
I'm prepping the house to be painted. The first thing to be done was clean it. So out came my trusty electric pressure washer. It's a great machine and has always done what I needed. Over the course of Sunday I cleaned the front of the house, removing loose paint and getting the mildew off the brick and siding. It was doing it usual good job, just slow. Move to the side, and the paint is in worse shape. Pretty much all of it needs to come off. The electric PW is doing it, but painfully slow.
Slave labor. 
This part of the house in under a monster oak tree. As you can see all the paint needs to come off. 
Forward to Monday, I price gas pressure washers to speed up the process. 
To get a good one you are going to spend big money. At this point I remember a monstrous PW pump I bought at an auction many years ago. I also happen to have a 6.5 HP engine still in the box that I had bought for a future project. What could be more GRM than to combine them. 
A couple of pulleys, two belts, and a piece of 1/2" aluminum plate and presto:
Total cost not including the engine $175. That was for the wand, hose, pulleys, belts, and necessary fittings. Northern Tool is your friend. I think the pump cost me $15 ten years ago. Total time invested, a little over an hour. I'm going to have to build a cart for it at some point. In the time I spent running it, it walked 15 feet across the yard. I'm going to have to stake it down next time.
In an hour this afternoon I managed to clean as much as I did all day Sunday. I also managed to blow a hole in the floor of my utility trailer, break the cats watering bowl, and make it necessary to replace the trim around one window. With the pinpoint nozzle in it will not only remove the paint from concrete, it will remove pieces of concrete as well. God that was fun!!!
Just had to share. It isn't often a throw together project works on the first try.
mndsm
SuperDork
6/21/11 8:56 p.m.
The masses demand this be pointed at a car. Also, I love it.... well done. That's my kinda danger
got a beater you can remove paint from too?
Video? This sounds positively epic!
Thread title reminds me of this:
Guess who said:
Through sound and motion, you will be able to paralyze nerves, shatter bones, set fires, suffocate an enemy or burst his organs.
In reply to mad_machine:
I've got a Chevelle that is 10% rust. It wouldn't remove all the paint, but it made a good attempt. I noticed Northern had a sandblast kit for pressure washers.
oldsaw
SuperDork
6/21/11 11:22 p.m.
Pics of the damage and video when you use the Northern blaster app or:
No video yet, I can't run the thing and film it. Two hands are required to keep the wand from beating me to death. Here are a few of the requested pictures.
Damaged window trim. It's safe on wood as long as the tip is at least 15 feet away from what every you are aiming at. Hopefully I can sand this out and not have to replace it.
Paint removal. This is the hood of the Chevelle. It isn't all the way down to the steel, but close. I wouldn't want to strip the entire car this way. I will definitely have to pick up the sand blaster attachment when it comes time to paint this car.
This is a closet door I replaced the other day. It took less the 20 seconds to blow this hole in it.
Front
Back
In a couple of hours this afternoon I stripped most of the paint off one side of the house. Then the relief valve failed. Now every time I release the trigger the engine stalls. I'll have to source another one tomorrow.
Maybe this weekend I can talk the wife into running a camera to shoot some video. I think she is a little scared of it.
Now y'all need to come up with a name for it. Calling it the pressure washer just doesn't seem to fit. 
how much pressure is it putting out?
In reply to fasted58:
I'm not sure. The relief valve is stamped 250 BAR which converts to a little over 3600 psi. But, that's the relief valve that failed this afternoon. It could have been going over that.
I think the reason it seems so powerful is more due to volume than pressure. The pump is almost a foot long and moves an amazing amount of water. I had to stop by Northern to buy the largest diameter tips they had to stop the engine from bogging down. Must need more HP.
I wonder how hard it would be to tie it into the 25 HP Kubota engine driving my generator.
Splinter Cell; distroys everything in sight. You might need to budget for repairs after you "prep for paint" . I have a delta pw with a honda 5.5 hp motor. I used it to clean tree poop off my recently aquired 89 daytona turbo.
I'm on my phone, can I request some Tim Allen Home Improvment content please?
Looks like you can still build stuff cheaper than buy it.
LOL at the carnage pictures!!!!!!!!
Dood, you can't find some non-pinpoint tips? I bought my 2500 PSI PW several years ago and washed the ex-MIL's house with it. I found out real quick the red pinpoint tip is a dangerous thing!
By the way, on the window trim I have one word: Bondo. 
slefain
SuperDork
6/24/11 1:46 p.m.
Toyman01 wrote:
It's safe on wood as long as the tip is at least 15 feet away from what every you are aiming at.
"Safe" is a relative term here.
I also laughed at the ~'two hands or it'll beat me' comment.
I hate to be this guy...but just want to point out that it looks like you're dealing with asbestos siding there. Safe-enough stuff if it's in good shape. Blasting it with the assblaster (or assdozer...thanks "Idiocracy") may be hard on its integrity. Which then gets hard on little lungs like the pair in the photo up there.
I'm not preaching, just want to make sure you're aware of the risks (and I kind of assume you are).
COOL pressure washer!
Clem
In reply to ClemSparks:
Thanks for the thoughts.
Yes it is asbestos. For it's age it's in good shape. The only paint coming off is the last coat of latex. The original coats of real (oil based) paint are permanently attached so I'm not getting down to the dangerous parts. There is actually a coat of blue under that white.
looking forward to future project mega-builds... maybe a kick butt hydraulic log splitter/ tubing bender w/ that 25hp Kubota
