Furniture Refinishing Question

[hullabelew]

Very long story but I had remove the newel post from the stair case in my house. In doing so, I chipped the polyurethane finish and dinged the wood up in a couple of places.

If I use some the paint stripping stuff to removed the outside finish, will I remove the stain underneath? Right now, I just need to put a new coat of poly on the outside once I get the old layer stripped off.

 

[hullabelew]

OK you non-furniture-finishing ********. I will let you know what happens come Monday.

 

[MirrOlure]

I'd be careful with any remover if you don't want to affect the stain............I would suggest just sanding down what you've got, then applying new coats of varnish......with sanding once each coat has dried.

 

[Baboso]

Heh, dang old, dang old google, man. Here's the link to what you need to know:

www.furniturewizard.com/refinish.htm

 

[txzen]

Having done some refinishing, I can't see how you could "remove" the poly without touching the stain. Maybe you won't get it all out (as it take a few applications sometimes to remove the stain), but you're going to get some of it.

I'd look at it like a car finish - to deal with a clear coat chip, you sand (very fine grain), and hope you don't sand the wood much. Then put a new poly coat on. Sanding the chip without damaging the wood/stain sounds pretty darn near impossible.

I look forward to hearing how it turned out. Bastard.

 

[hullabelew]

I ultimately used some non-toxic finish stripper that had a heavy orange scent. I stripped off the entire coating of poly without damaging the stain too much. I took about 3 tries, I didn't let the remover set too long and it worked OK until I then had to start sanding the corners to repair where we dented the post.

So, I ultimately did what I should have done in the first place. I took the post to the furniture builder who built my entertainment center that was too big to get into the room. He was the one that helped me remove the post in the first place. I asked him to sand the piece completely and then restain and refinish the SOB.

Next weekend: re-installation. Supplies include ample cold beers.