• Hi all and welcome to TheWoodHaven2 brought into the 21st Century, kicking and screaming! We all have Alasdair to thank for the vast bulk of the heavy lifting to get us here, no more so than me because he's taken away a huge burden of responsibility from my shoulders and brought us to this new shiny home, with all your previous content (hopefully) still intact! Please peruse and feed back. There is still plenty to do, like changing the colour scheme, adding the banner graphic, tweaking the odd setting here and there so I have added a new thread in the 'Technical Issues, Bugs and Feature Requests' forum for you to add any issues you find, any missing settings or just anything you'd like to see added/removed from the feature set that Xenforo offers. We will get to everything over the coming weeks so please be patient, but add anything at all to the thread I mention above and we promise to get to them over the next few days/weeks/months. In the meantime, please enjoy!

How to paint old set of drawers

T

the bear

Nordic Pine
Joined
Jul 21, 2014
Messages
512
Reaction score
12
Location
Surrey
I have my eye on a chest of drawers on ebay, just the right size for where it needs to go. It is an oak veneered carcass and solid drawers/plinth. Some of the veneer has lifted and broken off so its far from perfect looking but thats OK as Mrs Bear wants them painted so I can use filler etc and patch a few other bits of damage. I'll also nned to make a new top. The seller has added a coat of wax to make them look better for sale. My question is what would be the best way of getting this off so I can paint them. Any suggestion of what primer to use. I don't know what finish was on them originally so is there a good way to deal with that? I know many folks here would make a set of drawers from scratch but thats not going to happen for a variety of reasons and this seem a good way to get what we want if I know how to deal with the old finishes.
Many thanks
Mark
 
wax can be a nightmare to remove from my experience, it can also stop paint from sticking properly, ideally you'd want to sand it back with a random orbital sander or similar without going through the veneer which is easier said than done.
 
where the veneer is broken off I'm not going to be able to sand those areas. Where the veneer is missing hes waxed over the substrate board so that going to need geting off another way, otherwise I'm going to be sanding the rest of the veneer away. Is there a solvent I could use?

Mark
 
White Spirit (mineral spirit) will remove wax effectively. But it tends to swell wood fibres and if you have animal glues or weak glues present, it will destabilise those as well.

Denatured alcohol also works well. (Meths).

You will need to brush well into any corners. Change cloth regularly. Clean, let dry (which will be rapid). Then do it again.

Flour paper before painting.
 
If it's all flat surfaces I would go at it with a card scraper, it's the most efficient way to remove finishes back to bare timber because the card scraper doesn't clog as sandpaper does so you won't be using a dozen sheets to get a decent surface, though it is hard work and your fingers will ache after a while.

You could always try to pry the veneer off since it's already come off in places, that would speed up the process and all you would have to do is sand the substrate instead.

I'd probably use Zinsser B.I.N as a primer as it's much more forgiving on questionable surfaces that may or may not be contaminated with old finishes, glues, etc... that could bleed through or react with other primers like water-based primers.
 
Thanks for the input everyone. Unfortunately while I was questioning the extent of the repairs I needed to make the seller has decided to withdraw them "as they are not the usual standard of furniture he sells". Still its useful info you have provided for future so thanks anyway

Mark
 
the bear said:
Thanks for the input everyone. Unfortunately while I was questioning the extent of the repairs I needed to make the seller has decided to withdraw them "as they are not the usual standard of furniture he sells". Still its useful info you have provided for future so thanks anyway

Mark
Click to expand...
Offer a knock down price then if your going to paint it?!!
 
AJB Temple said:
Flour paper before painting.
Click to expand...

What does this entail? What is it?

I have to say I've had little joy trying to remove wax with white spirit. I used to do it with pine furniture, and it tended to dissolve some of the wax and send it deep into the pores of the timber, and into any little cracks or flaws. I gave up trying in the end. If I couldn't get it off mechanically (scraper, chisel, brad awl for the details) I ended up re-waxing.
 
I think flour paper is basically a. Very fine abrasive paper. Often recommended for use between coats of paint. At least that’s what I’ve use it for in the past
Mark
 
Yep. Exactly that. Used by lacquer painters and such like when building up a fine finish. No idea what the abrasive is - fine silica maybe.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top