Furniture refinishing

[Moonmaedyn]

This isn't really a "painting" thing and my apologies if I have put it in the wrong "topic."

I am making a lav out of an antique rosewood buffet. The front of this thing is really pretty scratched (dog trying to get to her toy that was hidden in there--she has a really good nose!) and I need to refinish it before I drop the sink in. What is the best stripper and procedure for this? I know that Formby's stuff is doo-doo--what else is out there (that works)?

I also don't really know what to do with the top--do I leave it the wood, refinish and just varathane the heck out of it, or replace it with cement board and tile it?

Thanks!

[LazyPup]

There are a number of problems to be considered in your project.

Due to the extreme high cost of rosewood it is unlikely that your cabinet is solid rosewood but more likely a rosewood veneer. The adhesives used to attach furniture grade veneer are not well suited to wet locations such as would be found on a bathroom lavatory cabinet.

Normally in qulity furniture when veneer is applied over a base wood there are two layers of veneer. The first layer is applied cross grain, then the finish layer is applied in the direction of grain. In order to prevent warping in the base wood, whenever a veneer is applied to one side a veneer of equal thickness must be applied to the opposite (underside). All four layers of veneer are applied with an adhesive.

Chemically stripping veneer wood can be very trick because there is the potential of the stripper chemical getting down in surface scratches and effecting the bond of the adhesive used to apply the veneer.

Mechanical stripping such as sanding can also be very problamatic because the veneer layer is very thing and it is easy to sand too much away, loosing physical strenght.

When refinishing veneered wood it is again important that whatever is done to the finish side must also be done to the backside in equal proportions.

For use in a wet location such as a lavatory the final finish must provide a completely water tight finish and it must be applied to all surfaces, top, bottom, sides and any cuts such as the sink hole. All the internal parts of the cabinet as well as the underside of the base would also need to be sealed with a finish material such as polyurethane.

You could remove the top and replace with a tile top in the manner you described or you could order a custom one piece acrylic top and sink combintation.


In my personal opinion, if your cabinet is a quality piece of antique furniture I would be very reluctant to use it in the high humidity enviroment of a bathroom.

[Moonmaedyn]

In looking closely at this thing, it appears that some of it "may" be veneer and some of it definitely isn't. The top drawer looks to have about 1/16th of an inch of the rosewood--you can clearly see the difference in wood and thickness when you look at the dovetailing. As for the front (where the scratches are) it doesn't look like veneer. Maybe it's possible that someone actually stained this to look like rosewood and used veneer on the top or something. I know it's hella heavy, so they must have used oak or some other hardwood. When we pulled out the top drawer, it had pencil writing all over it--looks like someone's checkbook register! Pretty weird that someone would keep their banking records on the bottom of a drawer, but...different strokes.

I am rethinking using this, although it was purchased 12 years ago for this purpose. I guess I could always do something useful with it...like using it for a buffet!