Hi I recently got this table that I want to strip back and revarnish it. How do I go about getting it back to bare wood? Do I use a stripper? If so what one? Or do I sand? And if so with electric sander or hand sand?
Hi @purefunk,
Typically, I'm a fan of sanding to remove old coatings rather than using paint and varnish strippers. Strippers can be quite messy to work with and, in most cases, you'll still need to sand the surface afterwards anyway.
That said, when sanding it's important to consider what the underlying timber is and how aggressive you can be. If a tabletop is made from solid timber, sanding isn't usually an issue provided you work evenly across the entire surface.
For your table, I'd be a little more cautious. The beautifully grained timber in the centre section suggests that it may well be a veneer. A veneer is a very thin layer of high-quality timber that is bonded to a substrate underneath. The challenge is that if you sand through the veneer, you'll expose the material below and the damage is often difficult or impossible to repair.
Because of that, I wouldn't attempt to sand aggressively. I'd start with a 240-grit abrasive on an orbital sander and lightly sand the surface, checking regularly to see when you've broken through the existing coating and reached the timber. Pay particular attention to not over-sand any one area, as the veneer may only be a couple of millimetres thick.
Once you've removed the majority of the coating, I'd switch to hand sanding to finish the job and prepare the surface for your new finish. Let me tag a few of our helpful members, @prettyliving, @Renowayoflife, @KellieN, @sandy_d, @craftyhopper and @lifestylebymari, to see if they have any thoughts.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Mitchell
I'm probably too late in answering this particular question but for any future projects with veneer, here is what I've learnt from a couple of veneer projects I have worked on. As Mitchell said, you need to use a very fine sandpaper grit. I didn't on a mirror that I wanted to sand back some black paint that was applied over the top of the veneer. I did try paint stripper first, but still needed to sand. I went too aggressive with it and yes, some parts I went a little too deep so ended up having to sand the whole lot back to what looks like chipboard. Not what I wanted to happen. I did try some stain on the chipboard but it didn't give the look I was after so I had to leave it looking like an unfinished project. It does kind of work with the natural look I was going for though!
I would maybe give paint stripper a go on a varnished veneer, as I am heavy handed with sanding so I would be worried I would sand way too long getting the varnish off and then take a layer of veneer off too. I feel this way, fingers crossed, the stripper would take most of the varnish off so only a light sanding with very fine sandpaper would be needed. But hey, I've never tried to remove varnish before, just paint. My second project I painted over veneer so I did go quite hard with the sanding as I wanted a rough surface for the paint to stick too. Don't ever think you can't paint over veneer because the paint won't stick, it will with a good sand and a primer.
Many thanks for your input, @KellieN. I trust our members with similar projects will appreciate your first-hand experience.
