Stripping question: Paint not clothes

[swirlygirls]

Hi all. I just experimented with stripping one of the cabinet doors. It has several layers of paint on it and when I got down to the grain some of the paint remains embedded. Should I put another layer of stripper on it? Will sanding take that out enough? I have almost no experience in this area but I did an old chair and after it was stained the areas where any bit of paint remained stood out to me. Thanks for the help.

[dawgpound]

You will always have a little bit of the old paint caught up in the grain of the wood. You can try using a Brass Brush, not a steel brush, and some lacquer thinner. Use the brass brush with the grain of the wood. It will help in removing some, if not most of the embedded paint in the grain.

[swirlygirls]

Thanks for the suggestion Ross. I tried it today and it seems to be working well but I can see that this is going to be a HUGE project. My neighbors have told me I'm crazy and that I should just paint but I'm going to try and get these cupboards down to something resembling the original.

[Deleted]

How did this go? Were you able to strip/shellac and return it to the original? Reason I'm asking - am thinking about purchasing a '62 model and this is exactly what I hope to do with it!

[cowcharge]

Curses, got my hopes up reading the subject line, only to have them dashed at the last second.

[swirlygirls]

Ha, ha Cowcharge.

Vagabond, this worked fine on the doors and drawers but it required lots of stripping (paint), sanding, and general carrying on. But it didn't work well enough on the cupboards themselves plus there was some water damage so they have been refaced. Here's my blog address in case you want to have a peek. Scroll back an entry or two for a photo of kitchen cabinets (refaced). The doors are not on yet and of course they don't look as pristine but they look good. The Oasis had a lighter interior than the Shastas and so I've gone a bit darker than the original but it's still lighter than the "orange" hue in many Shastas. I used lacquer, not shellac.

swirlygirls.livejournal.com/

Good luck to you. It's well worth it to get rid of the paint if that's the look you want.

P.S. I did leave paint on the inside of the cabinets although I repainted them a pleasing color. The reason is because there was weird stains, burns, etc, that no amount of sanding took care of and I couldn't stand to look at them.

[vikx]

I totally agree on painting the inside of the cabinets. Cleans things and seals them.

[cowcharge]

And lightens them so you can see stuff.