We have a lot of kitchen cabinets that were painted over very nice birch wood, what is the best way to get the paint off without compromising the wood underneath? We sanded two of them and they came out nice but very time consuming. We were told not to use stripper as it would tend to leach into the wood. These cabinets are 40 years old and paint was cheap and one coat.
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Replies
I often clean up timber because I recycle old furniture to get quality wood. If the paint is brittle then a cabinet scraper works very well.
With one coat of paint, a lower powered stripper--aqua strip for example, would probably work well. Even methylene chloride stripper, much faster, might leave wax to be removed with mineral spirits, but shouldn't leave any permanent impairment of the wood. It is pretty noxious stuff while using requiring serious ventilation (not just a couple of open windows). At the end of the day most of the stripper goes out with the old paint and the rest is neutralized and rinsed. Then you can sand to make the stripped units look like the ones you already sanded. The sanding will go much faster however. I do assume you are working on the doors and drawers separately from the boxes. If you don't want to introduce stripper into the kitchen you can sand the box fronts, and use stripper in another location to clean up the rest.
Ditto Mufti's answer, The paint is probably not well adhered to the original finish. Be sure to use a respirator as the paint may be lead based. A well sharpened card scraper is a marvelous tool. If you have access to a Performax type drum sander that may be an option too, but paint is not a friend to them, clean the paper often with a rubber eraser.
Work Safe, Count to 10 when your done for the day !!
Bruce S.
Bruce,
I too have drum-sanded off varnish and such. I still do so, but only if my experience (hard gained, like yours I suspect) tells me the stuff will not stick and burn to the sanding drum. When it does, one spends Some Time getting it off the sandpaper, with thinners and a wire brush, as the rubber eraser will not remove it if it has melted-on.
In fact, I have had to throw away more than one sanding strip because the amount and type of melt could not be got off without making holes in the sandpaper. One lives and learns.
Unfortunately I can't put names to the Offending Paint and Varnish types, having only learnt to identify them by sight (and sometimes smell, as the first chunk of varnished wood burns in the sander). Generally, they are (some of) the older oil-based type; water-based paints of today have been no problem (so far).
I imagine some of those latex-based paints might be difficult to sand, but I haven't come across any of them, yet.
Lataxe
I would not assume the paint is poorly adhering to the wood. I second the heat gun and stripper clean up. There's no reason the stripper will hurt the wood, and there is a good reason for doing it to preserve the patina of the aged wood, rather than sanding it down to "new" wood.
To the original poster, from what you can see from what you have cleaned, what kind of finish/color will you get after stripping?Gretchen
I guess I made an assumption about the paint adhesion being poor because most kitchen cabinets have a hard lacquer or varnish finish and paint generally scrapes off of them rather easily. At least that's been my experience.Work Safe, Count to 10 when your done for the day !!
Bruce S.
Thank you for your help it is going nicely lucky001
OK, Glad to hear that it's going nicely. How did you end up doing the job and what was under that old paint??Work Safe, Count to 10 when your done for the day !!
Bruce S.
Heat gun??
If you already have a heat gun, I would try that to remove most of the paint, then clean up with a liquid stripper.
There is no fast way to strip paint................
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"It is what we learn after we think we know it all, that counts."
John Wooden 1910-
Lucky,
If (and only if) the cabinet wood you want to clean off is mostly flat, I recommend a portable electric planer set to its minimum cut. I often use one to strip the paint, varnish or other nasty coating off the timber I recycle, which consists of all sorts of mucky and painted stuff but is also generally flat(ish).
Using the electric planer is very rapid; and if you hit a hidden nail top or similar you might damage the blades but they can still be used for a while and are generally very cheap to replace, anyway. And of course, the electric plane is flattening any bumpy bits too.
The last stuff I stripped in this way was a load of large pitch pine planks cut from an old beam. It took about 15 minutes to clean dirt, paint and general yuk off a fair number of square feet. I hate to think how long a cabinet scraper would have taken. The plane takes off around 0.2 mm on its minimum setting but will sweep a 3 inch wide swathe along an 8 foot plank in a few seconds. Often this single pass is all that's needed.
Of course, the electric planer will leave a few tramlines; but the cleaned off surface comes up well with a final sand using an RO or (as I am trying out just lately) a good quality smoothing plane.
This is because, once the paint or whatever is gone, you can see what's what so can use that other, more precise, tool with no fear of damage. Having taken the yuk off quickly, the final finishing with the RO or whatever is very rapid, as you are just dealing with very shallow tramlines, for the most part.
Curved stuff is another matter, of course. If its an old door with moldings, for example, I'm afraid I make life easy by cutting off the moldings to leave (and use) only the flat stuff, which is usually 90% of the article in question.
Lataxe
Lataxe, I suggested the scraper because I assumed lucky001 wishes to keep his cabinets. A hand powered scraper comes in many profiles, and you can file your own, it can be used at any appropriate angle, and time does not matter if the alternative is destruction of the things you wish to re-use.
I have a Metabo Lf714 paint stripper which was featured in F Homebuilding. It is very good, but it is not a precision instrument. It has been used for house paint removal, flattening plaster repairs and because it can get into awkward places, some timber planing.
Before you try to remove the paint, you need to determine what the cabinets are made of.
Lots of 40 year old cabinets are veneered plywood or veneered particle board and the veneers aren't very thick. If you get too aggressive with the paint removal, you can go right through the veneer and into the substrate leaving a really ugly spot that is almost impossible to hide when you refinish.
I also wondered if they would be solid wood or ply?Gretchen
Odds are that they're plywood (or maybe even particle board). If you have a removable shelf, look at the end or back edges. If they're plywood (or particle board), it's a good bet that the cabinet carcasses are too.
The carcasses are unlikely to need stripping, except for end panels if there are any. But 40 year old carcasses (mid 60's) are likely to have face frames that are highly likely to be solid wood, even though carcasses are almost certainly plywood or other veneered material. Doors will only be veneered if they have flat panels--either entirely flush, or the panel portion of frame and panel doors.
Steve -
You're quite right, but a sand-thru on an end panel can wreck an otherwise good refinishing job. Same situation for flat panel doors - they're usually plywood.
When customers ask me about refinishing old cabinets, my response is always the same. "It can be done, but you gotta be REAL careful". - lol
Exactly, that's why I recommend stripper, with only minimal sanding, especially on panels.
nikki's right, a heat gun or propane torch, will remove most of it the fastest. Just do it outside as you may have lead paint.
Then cleanup with semi paste stripper or lye. I'm sure some folks like the"eco" friendly citrus stuff, but it takes a long time.
Nikkiwood said it. I stripped wood for a liviing for 3 years and found that for paint, the initial heat gunning is the cleanest way to go. Ventilate and wear a respirator.
What techniques you use depends on what you're stripping and what is underneath...the origional finish.
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