What is Best to Use on Antique Furniture?

[Casey]

If you plane, you take away all patina leaving the wood "skinned". No worse than reclaimed lumber, I suppose, but not original. If any alternative exists you would want to avoid skinning. Gloves and respirator are a must for stripping.
Casey

[TuckerTavern]

I love milk paint and have used it often.

[phil]

pretty much what I do too but I have a bunch of painted baseboards and stuff to do. there really isn't much detail, I could run it through a thickness planer and re-cut the roundover but I don't really like running paint through the planer, it gums it up too much so I'd still have to get the bulk off with heat gun. I have quite a few painted fir doors. I guess Im not looking forward to breathing the paint or chemicals and looking for an easier way. .

Phil have you tried soy gel stripper? It seems to stay wet and last a longer time than the regular stuff, I've left it on for a day testing it out and was still wet, and took off about 6 layers of paint. Doesn't smell much, either. Cleans up with water.

I'm going to paint my trim with milk paint to thwart folks like you.

I did try a gallon of it. I had a handrail with a lot of paint and some detail. I found it took way longer . it wouldn't really bubble up the paint like the stinky strippers, rather it turned the paint to goo. then I couldn't get rid of it. I took it outside and washed it off with a hose and seemed to have a ard time getting rid of the greasiness it left. I didn't like it and I didnt' like having to lift the grain with the water hose.

one thing I tried when I was stripping adhesives off the floor was to add lacquer thinners. that accellerated the melting of the glue. and laquer thinner is cheaper than stripper. it was a white mastic that they had used to stick tiles down. took 10 gallons of the stinky stripper, but worked. I reclaimed my fir floors.

milk paint is the worst to strip. I bought a bunch of reclaimed casinngs. the only thing that dissolves that stuff is sandpaper

[phil]

If you plane, you take away all patina leaving the wood "skinned". No worse than reclaimed lumber, I suppose, but not original. If any alternative exists you would want to avoid skinning. Gloves and respirator are a must for stripping.
Casey

yes definitely, the patina is something you don't want to remove if possible especially form a valuable antique. that said give me a bunch of door casings with layers of paint and if I want to strip them I do my best to remove 99 percent of the paint and then sand them. If I don't then I can still see little bits of white paint and that drives me nuts. true it removes dents and it makes them a shade lighter. I just do a coat of clear danish oil then another coat or two of dainish oil that I slightly tint. this gets me back tot he shade I'm after. If I strip them with no sanding, it can be done, takes way longer. In the end I don't' really find it a lot more attractive but I think it is a trade off of time vs the value and historic importance of the object you are stripping.

I did my staircase. it was painted red then grey then brown. that red paint in the cracks and the staircase having so many corners was a challenge, that and hundreds of nail holes from carpeting them. i got as much as I could off with strippers then sanding but those bits of red in all the cracks and corners , wow what a project. one trick I used was in realizing that most of what I had all the trouble with was little crevaces, splinters. some of It I put a bit of accurately tinted wood filler over then sanded that, so little splinters that held red paint got filled and that worked. of course you don't want filler all over but it was one technique that helped a little. there is just no way I could have removed all the paint on the staircase and kept the patina I was lucky to get the wood back.

lots of may casings and stuff were missing so reclaimed and there is some variation in color because they are from all over.. but I control it to a reasonable level by using weak tints in my oil finish. after installation it takes a year or two for the sun to make them a shade darker. of course if you sand anything it will go darker after some time in the sun (fir will anyway) but it's limited.

[SouthernLady]

Thanks to all of the wonderful advice posted here (thank you all so much!), I went with something that has a mix of what everyone had said--Feed-N-Wax, a blend of beeswax, carnauba wax, and orange oil. I talked to a longtime antique furniture dealer, and he also recommended using the Restore-A-Finish for my darker furniture in the kitchen which had started to turn ashy from drying out. I used the Restore-A-Finish for dark oak, which I applied Saturday evening after my supper company had left (pardon the pitcher of tea still on the buffet...). I used the Feed-N-Wax Sunday afternoon when I got home from church, let it sit while I took the dog out for her afternoon walk, then polished it a bit when we got back in.



I wish I had taken before and after pictures with my good camera, not the cell phone camera. I will try to remember to do that when I tackle the buffet, table, and chairs. You may be able to notice, though, how dry and ashy the buffet looks compared to the newly-restored china cabinet.

I really can't believe the difference! I had always been terrified of waxing furniture, thinking it would be hard, but was pleasantly surprised at how easy it actually is, although of course it needed the elbow grease I expected.

I am guessing these pieces are 1900-1910, but am not certain. They have been in the same family until I purchased them. They are in very good condition, although the china cabinet is missing a few of the detail pieces.

[Ober51]

Looks good!

[phil]

they look like beautiful old and cared for antiques rather than over restored items. thanks for sharing your project and Im glad you found a technique that you liked. Just try to stay away from furniture products containing silicone, and be aware many don't advertise it is in the product. Any issues will only surface when you refinish them and there have been some horror stories of that sort. I find it morally wrong that antique dealers do things like that to antiques but I think it's pretty common. I'd make a lousy antique dealer because I wouldn't want to sell anything

[Al F. Furnituremaker]

I second what Phil said, but it's not just the silicone. For example, Murphy's leaves a film and will build up over time ruining the finish. If you don't know what is in it, don't use it. It is best to stay away from all the "miracle cures" sold on the supermarket and "junk-in-the-box" store shelves.

I also don't believe in the two step products. Cleaning and polishing don't go together. Any product that claims it cleans and polishes, is leaving dirt behind in the mixture. There is a reason you clean things, that is to get rid of ALL the dirt.

I've got 4 pieces of furniture from one customer in the shop right now. Two of which seem to have some kind of dark oil soaked into the tops (motor oil maybe). Those tops need to be refinished, but the rest of it will be cleaned and waxed only.

Stick with the basics and you won't be sorry.

Your furniture looks great!

[phil]

AL - what do you recommend for carved areas? would you use wax in those areas? or just the flat surfaces?
Phil

[Al F. Furnituremaker]

Phil, it sort of depends on the carving. A carving with large smooth relief is relatively easy to do with wax, brushes, and wooden toothpicks or sharpened dowels. I use tooth brushes, shoe polish brush, trimmed down (very short to stiffen it up) natural bristle paint brush, and of course, rags. Those with the dimpled background, I stay away from, I'd be there forever getting all the wax out of those dimples. I'm patient, but not that patient.