The birch cabinets are in pretty good shape.
A few places will need to be repaired with new plywood and a few cabinet doors are irreparably damaged (including the doors below but you can't see the damaged side in the photo).
They are well built and sturdy, with mortise and tenon joinery and full length hinges.
Mostly the issue is the old shellac finish is yellowed and wrinkled and that won't do.
We don't want to paint them.
It seems like this is the original clear shellac.
I checked on line (including the Tin Can Tourist discussions on Facebook) to see what people are doing to refinish old cabinets. Some people were saying that if the original finish is shellac, then you can wipe it down with denatured alcohol and it would be a good preparation for a fresh shellac, as long as you are going with a darker shade (like amber over transparent).
I tried that the denatured alcohol. The results were not satisfying at all. It didn't look like the alcohol did ANYTHING.
So I tried Citristrip and it was beautiful:
Before and after. The light is weird so you don't get the full effect of the beauty but it is VERY satisfying.
I am excited to get stripping all of the cabinets! We moved them into the laundry room and I'll be working on it indefinitely.
BTW, Citristrip label says to use mineral spirits for cleanup. I think that the denatured alcohol is a million times more effective and smells better too.
Next phase and a later post will be about the new shellac. We'd like a warmer color. Stay tuned and happy stripping!
No comments:
Post a Comment