finishing a poplar toy box....aaaargh

[kathleen rackliffe]

Hi, this is my very first post here - I've got a dilemma and in trying to solve it I found this website and since it appears to be a treasure trove, I figured I'd give it a shot.
I've got this toy box in my garage - it's one of those bench type things with the seat that lifts up, storage underneath, it's about 3'x3' and about a foot and a half deep. I'd take a picture but I can't find my camera and my phone is still just a phone. You all get the gist, I'm sure.
It was built by the father of a friend of mine for her firstborn last year. It's naked poplar, we're pretty sure he used some kind of a kit. He did an ok job for a guy who's 80, but it looks very much like he took a power sander to the thing after he put it together. It is gouged, buddy, worse in a few spots than others, but I have been looking at this thing trying to figure out what I'm going to do with it (and just how he did what he did to it). It was dark the night I put it in the car to bring it home with me, and had it been a little lighter, I might have left it where it was cuz it is a project.
I do not believe there is any way that I can sand that stuff out. I worked on it for a while this morning, and it's better, but there are lots of tiny little scratches that go against the grain, and these dents where the sander got away from Grandpa.
To sort of complicate things, we want a cherry finish to match the cherry bedroom. I'm thinking dye rather than stain, and maybe work with the variation in the poplar and give it a nice understated distressed look, incorporate those dents in there.
Anyway, before I go there, I figured I'd check and see if anybody here has any ideas about ways to get rid of my gouges ( I am not hopeful) or at least smooth this thing out a little.
Sanding is a drag....

Kathleen

[Joe Jensen]

Welcome Kathlene,
I have a few questions.
1) Do you have any power sanding tools?
2) Have you done any sanding before?
3) How deep are the gouges?

Popular does not really have any grain to speak of, and it can really soak up stain or dye. I normally only use dye, and I don't really use popular when it will be a stained piece. If it were mine, and I felt it were possible to sand out the gouges with a power sander, I'd sand, seal with shellac, and then use a stain that is the color you want. Finally top coat with a clear finish.

If you do sand it, make sure to start with say 60 or 80 grit, and work your way up using all the grits until at least 220.

If it's really not very flat, I'd start with 60, then 80, then 100, 120, 150, 180, and finally 220.

Using all those grits may sound like it's very time consuming, but it will go faster and take less work than trying to just use a few.

If the gouges are too deep, consider a painted finish. Painted can compliment deep cherry nicely, and you can level the gouges with filler if you are painting...joe

[Jim Becker]

Welcome to SMC, Kathleen!

A good ROS, starting with 80 grit abrasive and working your way up to about 180 should take care of most of the issues. A dye is definitely the way to go...I recommend a water soluble dye unless you can spray it. Alcohol soluble dyes really can't be applied by hand without a lot of overlap marks due to the rapid evaporation of the alcohol. Seal the dye with de-waxed shellac. (Zinsser SealCoat is an readily available product that is de-waxed and ready to apply...they also have shellac in a spray bomb and it's also de-waxed) Then top coat with the finish of your choice.

You likely not be able to match the so-called cherry bedroom furniture exactly; commercial furniture generally uses a multi-step finishing process to create the intended effect and it may not even be cherry unless you built it. This is especially true if it's a darker or very red finish.

I work a lot with poplar and have been very satisfied with the finishing results I've obtained using the above mentioned steps.

[kathleen rackliffe]

y'all are quick, thank you

Joe -

to answer your questions,
1) I've got a belt sander and somewhere around here there's a finish sander
2)yes, I've done some sanding
3)probably not that deep, an eighth of an inch or so at the worst
I had this feeling somebody would tell me to start w/60 and work my way up, I'll have to recon the grits I'm missing, no use skipping steps I spose...

paint, unfortunately, is a no-go. it's not mine, or I'd be thinking the same thing. it's a toybox.

Jim - water soluble dye, check, it's very poplar friendly I think and since I know that what you are saying is true - i.e., that it is impossible to match anybody's commercially manufactured bedroom set, particularly cherry, if it is, in fact, cherry - I'm going for as close as I can get without driving myself nuts trying to do the impossible.
I have some de-waxed shellac, not sure which brand but it's been around a while - will that matter, does that stuff have a lifespan?
My inclination is a water soluble poly finish, but I am open to suggestions - this thing is going to be beat upon by boys ages 1 and 3....


Ok, you guys have been most helpful, I was eyeballing that sander today and was not feeling all that comfortable about it, but what the hec.
I'll let you know how I make out.

[Bruce Shiverdecker]

Just my .02.

The best way to make poplar look like cherry is to give it a coat or two of Shelac, sand lightly with 180, thwn use WATER BASED WIPE ON GELL STAIN, till you get the color you're looking for. I saw a piece of poplar with both white and green in it look like beautiful cherry.

Bruce

[Joe Jensen]

Just my .02.

The best way to make poplar look like cherry is to give it a coat or two of Shelac, sand lightly with 180, thwn use WATER BASED WIPE ON GELL STAIN, till you get the color you're looking for. I saw a piece of poplar with both white and green in it look like beautiful cherry.

Bruce

That's what I'd do. Dye on a soft wood like popular can get very dark very fast, and it's really hard to control and keep even. I use dye but I only spray dye. I lay on lots of very thin coats to keep it even...joe

[Clara Koss]

Hi, this is my very first post here - I've got a dilemma and in trying to solve it I found this website and since it appears to be a treasure trove, I figured I'd give it a shot.
I've got this toy box in my garage - it's one of those bench type things with the seat that lifts up, storage underneath, it's about 3'x3' and about a foot and a half deep. I'd take a picture but I can't find my camera and my phone is still just a phone. You all get the gist, I'm sure.
It was built by the father of a friend of mine for her firstborn last year. It's naked poplar, we're pretty sure he used some kind of a kit. He did an ok job for a guy who's 80, but it looks very much like he took a power sander to the thing after he put it together. It is gouged, buddy, worse in a few spots than others, but I have been looking at this thing trying to figure out what I'm going to do with it (and just how he did what he did to it). It was dark the night I put it in the car to bring it home with me, and had it been a little lighter, I might have left it where it was cuz it is a project.
I do not believe there is any way that I can sand that stuff out. I worked on it for a while this morning, and it's better, but there are lots of tiny little scratches that go against the grain, and these dents where the sander got away from Grandpa.
To sort of complicate things, we want a cherry finish to match the cherry bedroom. I'm thinking dye rather than stain, and maybe work with the variation in the poplar and give it a nice understated distressed look, incorporate those dents in there.
Anyway, before I go there, I figured I'd check and see if anybody here has any ideas about ways to get rid of my gouges ( I am not hopeful) or at least smooth this thing out a little.
Sanding is a drag....

Kathleen

right away i was going to tell you to distress it but you figured it out on your own...i think it's great that an old geezer made it and that it has his shaky marks on it..i love that kind of memento...

[Jim Becker]

I have some de-waxed shellac, not sure which brand but it's been around a while - will that matter, does that stuff have a lifespan?

Yup...it matters. If it was mixed from flakes, about 6 months or a little more. If it's Zinsser SealCoat, it has a longer shelf life, but it's not unlimited. The best practice is always to use "fresh" finish. (Which is why you shouldn't buy it in large containers if you are not going to use it up in a reasonable period of time...it's more expensive to throw out a large remainder than it is to buy in the smaller and slightly more expensive at retail containers)

[Rich Engelhardt]

Hello,

It was built by the father of a friend of mine for her firstborn last year. It's naked poplar, we're pretty sure he used some kind of a kit

Are you positive it's Poplar?
Reason I ask is because it sounds (from the description) a whole lot like the one I have sitting in the enclosed back porch.
IIRC, somebody in the area (I'm just South of Cleveland in Stow) had these a year or two ago on sale for a tremendously low price - ~ $10.00 IIRC. They came knocked down and you assembled them with the included allen head screws. If you pop out one of the buttons covering the screw heads and look, it may well be the same "kit".
I bought one for two reasons:
#1 - it was cheap.
#2 - I plan on making a copy of it out of treated or cedar for outside.
(which brings me to)
Depending on how badly the piece is gouged, it may be easier in the long run to replace the most severly damaged parts.
Or. Duplicate it using Cherry and use the one gramps dinged up as a prototype.

[kathleen rackliffe]

right away i was going to tell you to distress it but you figured it out on your own...i think it's great that an old geezer made it and that it has his shaky marks on it..i love that kind of memento...

Ah ha, a girl! Maybe something with the X chromosome, that allows us to enjoy those kinds of momentos, eh? I've only got a couple spots that I think are definitely going to carry Grandpa's mark and after I read your post, I am feeling fine about that. Thanks.

[kathleen rackliffe]

no allen head screws, and it's definitely poplar, I worked on it for a bit last night and it'll clean up ok, I think. my thing is that it's a toybox - the small boy it belongs to will ding it somehow on day one, I'm quite sure, so if I wind up with remnants of Grandpa's dings here and there, it's probably not going to matter much in the long run. although at this point I think I'm going to be able to get rid of most of them, and I'll just tinker with the color til I get it to where I want it. thank you, though, for the suggestion - it's the same one my husband made when he saw it, but we decided that since Grandpa made it, we should work with it the way it is.
plus it's really well put together - I'm not sure we could get it apart if we wanted to!