Unique in the Laurentians

Imagine being able to take the surface of a log house down to its original condition, gently and ecologically. Better than sanding for precision jobs, aérogommage is a treatment so gentle that it’s even possible to take the colour off an egg without breaking the shell.

Tremblant Express met with Yohan Lefrance, owner of Jet Décap, who has mastered this technique – which is well-known in Europe but still uncommon in Québec.

For the past five years the company Jet Décap has provided a turnkey reconditioning service for any kind of surface: wood, metal, stone or concrete. As one might expect, wood is the most frequent surface to be reconditioned in this area and the businessman has restored numerous log residences, both round logs and squared.

“We have our niche,” says Yohan. ”Most of our clients hope to return the cladding of their wood home to as natural a state as possible.

Maximizing protection

Each case requires a technique adapted to the project, so initial testing is required. In contrast with traditional sanding by hand, aérogommage very gently opens the pores of the wood, allowing the stains and other products to penetrate more deeply and providing the wood with longer-lasting protection. 

Fast, precise and gentle

An offshoot of traditional sanding, aérogommage uses extremely fine abrasives combined with remarkably low air pressure. The combination gives the stripping technique an unmatched level of precision and allows it to treat, without damage, fragile materials such as wood, fibreglass and aluminum.

“With aerogommage, we can obtain a softer, more uniform result,” Yohan explains.

“The abrasive we use is grade 200+ recycled glass. You’re almost talking about dust and it comes closest to sodium bicarbonate, which is much more expensive,” he notes.

“Aerogommage is so precise that we can strip a surface as narrow as window frames without risking damage to the glass,” Yohan adds. “Another advantage is that it’s biodegradable, because we don’t use any chemical products,” he concludes.

Jet-decap.ca