Stripping oak wood w/dark stain

[Mike Wilkins]

Like many of us here, I do a variety of woodworking-related things in my shop, both new stuff and refinishing/rebuilding.
I am having a difficult time removing some dark stain from an item built from oak. The problem is difficulty removing the stuff from the open pores. I have used wood bleach and stripper with little success. Next step is sanding with a coarse grit sandpaper in a beltsander. I hate refinishing.
Any other suggestions from the Creek would be helpful.
Did I mention I don't like refinishing?

[Rich Engelhardt]

Hello Mike,

When I worked behind the counter selling paint/finishes, many of my customers used Oxalic Acid in crystal form to make a stronger belach that the commercially prepared ones are.
I never had much luck with it myself & always had to resort to sanding until it looked passable.

One other method I recall involved using paste wood filler, tinted with a lighter color stain, to try to bring the finish up to some sort of even level.
I never tried that route myself. I suggest trying it out by staining some scrap first, then seeing if it produces an acceptable appearance.

I'm of the opinion that there's a special place in the hereafter reserved for people that apply dark stain to unfilled open grain wood. It's right next to the place reserved for those people that paint over wallpaper.