A soda blaster employs granular sodium bicarbonate to remove tenacious paint off concrete and other surfaces fast and without hurting the substance beneath. Regular baking soda is ineffective. You can make your own powerful blasters by combining salt with acid to create a spray-dispersed powder, or detonator, as it's called in the trade. Concrete requires a chemical reaction to break down the material you want removed. Baking soda alone will not do this. But if you mix it with an acid, such as vinegar, it creates carbon dioxide gas that does exactly that. The gas also helps disperse the powder so that it gets into small crevices and cracks where most metal paints don't go. The mixture is applied with a hose or sprayer, and once it has dried, heat is applied to burn off any remaining powder. This method is very effective for removing old paint layers from concrete surfaces, but it won't work on new paint. For that, you need organic solvents such as vinegar or alcohol. They break down the resin in the paint molecule and allow the salts to dissolve the pigment molecules. You can use soda blasts to remove paint from wood, as well. The only thing to be careful of is not to use too much soda because it will eat away at the wood fiber underneath.