Help! Why Can’t I Strip This Table?

Let’s say you’re planning to refinish a table, but first you’ve got to take some of the old surface off.  So you use a handy can of stripper.  Only after you let the stripper ooze into the table for 15 minutes and you try to scrape it off, your efforts seem to barely make a dent in removing the old finish off your furniture.

I recently had this happen with an end table Jem and I were trying to refinish.  We picked it up at a thrift store in Milwaukee about a year ago and it’s been needing some work ever since then.  Emboldened by my dad’s recent lessons in stripping and refinishing tables, we thought we might try a project on our own.  But we miserably failed!

I wrote to my dad and asked why, after several coats of stripper, we were not able to see much of a dent in the removal of the old finish.

His reply:

Here is the skinny on the “other” types of finishes besides varnish.  I did this stuff so much I forgot to tell you about this most basic test about the other “strippers” involved in refinishing.  Actually, denatured alcohol and laquer thinner are not strippers.  They are solvents that dissolve shellac or lacquer.  You were probably trying to strip a shellac or lacquer finish with stripper that is made for taking off polyurethane or other types of varnish and with stripping oil based paints.

The next time you get to the hardware store just by a quart container of denatured alcohol and one of lacquer thinner.  Then put on your gloves, dip a cotton ball in the alcohol and/or the lacquer thinner.  If the surface begins to dissolve with either (or perhaps a combination of the two), you have figured out what to use to “strip” the piece.  Try these liquids on a very inconspicous area of your floor (that has not been refinished) and see if it works on the floor just as a test.  If you read this article it has very helpful explanations.

Once again, thanks, Bob!

Read my dad’s article about staining and varnishing furniture here.  And his article about stripping furniture here.