Removing Old Glazes and Paint

[Brent Ring]

I have accepted a commission from a close friend to help strip and restore an old childs dish cabinet. It is approximately 110 years old, has been in her family for the entire time., and is made of predominately pine, or so it appears.

It has been covered with some old oak-grained glaze, and old white paint. In addition to a few repairs and parts replacements, she would like to see the original grain of the wood again.

I have been instructed to treat the project as a toy refinishing job, as she is giving this to her daughters to play with, just as she had it when she was young.

My questions to the collective expertise are:

1. What to use to safely strip the work down to the original wood without loosening glue joints, etc. One of the citrus strippers comes to mind, but I dont want to be sanding forever either.
2. I was planning on refinishing with a seal coat of DW shellac, a Early American Stain, and then more coats of shellac. My biggest concern is trying to match the wood, as I am confident that the new and old will absorb the stains at different rates. I do plan on testing, but obviously do not have a lot of the aged stock to practice with. I am looking for suggestions here.

All ideas are welcome.

Thanks

[Bruce Shiverdecker]

There are some very good strippers, but you might want to try a FEIN MultiMaster.

Bruce

[Neal Clayton]

I have accepted a commission from a close friend to help strip and restore an old childs dish cabinet. It is approximately 110 years old, has been in her family for the entire time., and is made of predominately pine, or so it appears.

It has been covered with some old oak-grained glaze, and old white paint. In addition to a few repairs and parts replacements, she would like to see the original grain of the wood again.

I have been instructed to treat the project as a toy refinishing job, as she is giving this to her daughters to play with, just as she had it when she was young.

My questions to the collective expertise are:

1. What to use to safely strip the work down to the original wood without loosening glue joints, etc. One of the citrus strippers comes to mind, but I dont want to be sanding forever either.
2. I was planning on refinishing with a seal coat of DW shellac, a Early American Stain, and then more coats of shellac. My biggest concern is trying to match the wood, as I am confident that the new and old will absorb the stains at different rates. I do plan on testing, but obviously do not have a lot of the aged stock to practice with. I am looking for suggestions here.

All ideas are welcome.

Thanks

i've stripped ~100 year old veneer doors with a heat gun followed by methylene chloride without losing the veneer.

if you use a colored shellac multiple coats will blend together color-wise after a few coats. the darker colors like garnet especially.

i would use an oil as the first/seal coat, otherwise many shellac coats start to obscure the grain. any oil will work fine, BLO, waterlox, etc.

i had basically the same problem as yours with reproduction moldings in my house. new trim next to old floors, and the old floors had significantly darkened over the years. one coat of waterlox, followed by 5 coats of sprayed garnet shellac, and they all match.

if it's old growth pine i would skip the stain. it can be done if you seal first, but it's hard to forsee rough spots that absorb too much. much safer to use a colored/dyed shellac for the color.