80’s end table with a top that won’t be sanded or stripped
Barbeerefinish
| Posted in General Discussion on
Help !
I have several 1980’s end tables that have a magical top on them that I am not able to strip or sand anything to even de gloss it a bit! What can I do! Trying to refinish them.
Tried:
acetone
stripper
paint thinner
heat gun
sander with 40 grit
Christine
Replies
A picture of the actual top might be helpful.
A few tables in the 80s did have glass tops so that is not impossible. I'd think you'd have spotted that though, and even glass will be scratched by sandpaper.
Hand plane it. Takes about five minutes to get the finish off and two very thin shavings of bare wood. You will have to strip and sand any molded edge. Try Citristrip. It may take a few applications, but it will usually work. If it wont work, you can usually find a router bit that matches most simple edge moldings. Just re-run the edge on a router table or a shaper. You'll lose a little size on the top, but not usually enough to make a difference. If the cutter doesn't match exactly, you are essentially imparting a new profile. It's 80s furniture, not original Chippendale. Nobody will notice.
Thanks for your help!
That would be the ideal finish, why remove an indestructible finish ?
I think he or she wants to paint it. Very popular today for the younger generation. It's ironic of course, coming here to ask such a question on a fine woodworking forum. Some might find it distasteful?
Oh, paint!
If it appears that the top is some sort of plastic coating there are primers for that. I have something called Bulldog that came from a automotive paint supplier. For priming bumpers and such I suppose. If you prepping for paint then you just need something to stick to it that paint would stick to. Shellac sticks to a lot of surfaces and is quite a good primer. If no solvent will effect the surface and course sand paper just bounces off would acid work to degloss the surface? Muriatic acid solution? Sand blast? Bead blast? Something has to work, that table is not alien technology!
I have seen some furniture, I think ,for example, Lane did it, from the 50s and sixties that had a thin veneer top surface that was color/ grain matched to the rest of the piece and was some kind of bullet proof laminate- formica like but very hard .
Personally I have no problem with painted wood. And that dark clunky piece of furniture in the picture sure could use some cheering up. Paint might just be able to accomplish that.
My guess is that you are dealing with a cured resin of some kind, probably applied in a spray booth in a production setting. Often these are epoxy or polystyrene based and contain catalysts that might initiate strong cross-linking, possibly using UV light. If you want to get down to bare wood I would try Methylene Chloride (if you can still find some). Just take care to vent your work area well and wear a solvent mask.
But take care, these production type products are also likely veneered. Anything that can make it through a cured polymer coating will likely debond veneer as well. Good luck.
You won't find methylene chloride today (our government protecting us ignorant masses from ourselves); I couldn't get it through a lab supply place.
Jasco's Premium Paint and Epoxy Remover works well, but dries quickly in hot weather. I sometimes mix it 50/50 with the citrus removers and let their thickeners retard the drying; their citrus solvents don't hurt either.