Hey everybody,
I’m constantly stripping and refinishing, so figured I’d make a post about the process and how to ensure a better end result on your refinishing job; be it refinishing furniture pieces or 70-year-old varnished teak parts like these.
Materials you’ll need:
- stripping gel
- card scraper and/or a handled scraper. Razor scraper can work, but you better have an extremely steady hand
- rags and/or wipe-alls
- 2” or 3” chip brushes
- heat gun (adjustable temp guns will give you best result)
- scotch-brite pads
- NAPTHA
- ACETONE
- Clamps or something to secure workpiece
- Drop cloth — helps with cleanup because this is a NASTY process
- PPE – breathing mask or respirator, vinyl gloves both thin and thick. If you have to choose just one go with the thick set of gloves
Once you’ve got your work area set up and materials good to go, our first step is going to be stripping. Unfortunately, not the half-naked women and Whitesnake on speakers stripping, but heat-stripping.
With your handled scraper and heat gun on relatively low, pick a spot on your piece that you’d like to start at. Top to bottom, side to side, corner to corner, it doesn’t matter where you start, but it’s imperative that when you are scraping that you go WITH the grain of the wood. Going against the grain will just cause you more sanding and headache in the end. End grain is not as important but you still want to follow whichever scraping direction you use on the face