Hey everyone, I'm planning on refinishing some of the interior woodwork and trim in our house, but I do have a few questions before I get started. I thought I'd start with my closet door just to get the hang of things (pics below). However, I'm not too sure whether I should use a chemical stripper to remove the varnish or if I could just sand through everything. Moreover, the corners are all worn and chipping - is that something I can fix by sanding or should I use some sort of wood putty/filler? Thanks!
http://imgur.com/a/d5SK5
Refinishing Wooden Doors and Trim
Re: Refinishing Wooden Doors and Trim
Sanding through anything but wood sucks. It gums up sandpaper pretty quick, so I would definitely go with a stripper. If the doors are shellacked then you can use alcohol. For other stuff you might need something more potent, like Methyl Chloride(even though it pretty much melts your face off). Avoid any 'green' strippers. They suck.
I would personally just leave the corners alone and call it 'character'
I would personally just leave the corners alone and call it 'character'
Re: Refinishing Wooden Doors and Trim
Thanks! Is there any way for me to test whether or not the wood is shellacked? Other than buying a bottle of denatured alcohol and testing it out that is
Re: Refinishing Wooden Doors and Trim
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think plain old rubbing alcohol will soften shellac enough to know if it's shellac.
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Texas_Ranger
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Re: Refinishing Wooden Doors and Trim
JRC wrote:Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think plain old rubbing alcohol will soften shellac enough to know if it's shellac.
Anything with around 40% of alcohol or more will dissolve shellac, vodka certainly works.
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Kashka-Kat
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Re: Refinishing Wooden Doors and Trim
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Kashka-Kat
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Re: Refinishing Wooden Doors and Trim
Well, it kinda looks like shellac - color, degree of shininess & it gets bumpy like that with age. If so you have the best possible vintage wood to work with! If so, dont use anything harsher than alcohol (denatured or otherwise) or the stuff that's sold as "furniture refinisher" which I think has a little more oomph but is smellier. No methyl chloride or any stripper - it stripsout the patina /aged color of the wood and leaves it really kinda blotchy and ugly. Dont ask how I know that!
Getting it off with alcohol is kind of time consuming on the front end, at least on my wood - but then it leaves you with this beautiful wood that may only need another coat or 2 of shellac to freshen it, if that - mine seems to still have a bit of shellac thats gone into the pores so I havent gotten around yet to recoating it. Whereas, the part where I used stripper -its a mess not sure what Ill do with that - have to futz aroud with more stripper to get color more even, or stain, or something tbd...
Getting it off with alcohol is kind of time consuming on the front end, at least on my wood - but then it leaves you with this beautiful wood that may only need another coat or 2 of shellac to freshen it, if that - mine seems to still have a bit of shellac thats gone into the pores so I havent gotten around yet to recoating it. Whereas, the part where I used stripper -its a mess not sure what Ill do with that - have to futz aroud with more stripper to get color more even, or stain, or something tbd...
Re: Refinishing Wooden Doors and Trim
Is there a need to refinish your woodwork? It seems to look fine to me. Some people would recommend against stripping the original finish because it will remove the "patina". Personally I always notice something refinished doesn't always look quite the same as something that was never stripped in the first place. If the nicks and scratches bother you alot, maybe just spot treat with new stain instead of stripping it all. When I saw this thread I expected to see the wood was painted.
Re: Refinishing Wooden Doors and Trim
Thanks for the advice everyone! Vala, good point. I guess I just want to make our woodwork look fresh and clean again and stripping everything might be a bit extreme. I did some research and it looks like I might be able to use some Restor-A-Finish to revitalize the wood. Do any of you have any experience using this?
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1918ColonialRevival
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Re: Refinishing Wooden Doors and Trim
The finish on that door looks savable to me. I would clean it good with some naphtha and #0000 steel wool and follow up with a wash with Murphy's oil soap. You should be able to touch it up and give it a coat of paste wax. It'll look a lot better.
The finish looks like shellac, which was one of the more common wood finishes up until the late 1920s/early 1930s. If you have any that are worse, here is how I refinished my doors that needed it:
http://www.colonialrevivalrestoration.com/Doors.html.
Shellac can also be re-amalgamated. The old shellac can be dissolved using a mix of denatured alcohol and shellac and re-flowed over the door. I would recommend practicing this technique first on something you don't care about like scrap wood.
The finish looks like shellac, which was one of the more common wood finishes up until the late 1920s/early 1930s. If you have any that are worse, here is how I refinished my doors that needed it:
http://www.colonialrevivalrestoration.com/Doors.html.
Shellac can also be re-amalgamated. The old shellac can be dissolved using a mix of denatured alcohol and shellac and re-flowed over the door. I would recommend practicing this technique first on something you don't care about like scrap wood.