Stripping

[sandwedge]

(04-27-2020, 10:39 AM)McC Wrote: I haven't seen this mentioned but if you lay the cabinet on its back, the vertical surface becomes a horizontal one and your liquid stripper can do its thing.

I once bought an elaborate cherry window seat/coat tree kind of thing for ten bucks.  It was painted a hideous green.  I stripped off the ugly paint.

Once I got to the bare wood, I painted on black paint with a rag, like you would apply stain.  I then sanded it all, leaving the black paint only on the grain.  This works beautifully with most any wood.

Cherry, when exposed to a month or two of sunlight, darkens from a pinkish color to a vibrant red.  I put it in a room where the sun came in several hours a day and it did darken.

Then I used clear varnish for the finish coat.  The final look was striking--red with bold black grain.  It was a show piece.  I took it to a little flea market nearby and left it in the back of my truck and sold it for $500 in about ten minutes and I probably could have gotten a lot more if I really tried.

There are also colored stains on the market that allow you to have a painted type color but still have visible grain.  I've used this several times and it creates a really cool look.  It's my wife's favorite, as a matter of fact. 

I used that color stain on the handrail going up to the second floor in the house my ex and I bought 3 years ago. I had remodeled the entire downstairs, kitchen, dining and both living rooms and when friends would come over, it was pretty much the stair handrail that aught everyone's eye.