How to clean and degrease older furniture in preparation for staining or painting?

[BigFella1956]

G'day, this question relates to 2 pieces of old furniture I have as follows:

• one is a 80 year old dining table that used to belong to my mother so it has great sentimental value. The table is solid timber which looks like mountain ash and it has many scratches and dings in it, most I which I will keep, but the lacquer is failing so I need to remove and replace it using finer grade sandpaper. I may just use shellac or clear varnish. I will not change the original colour.
• the other is a cupboard about 1m x 1m x 50cm. It is probably older than the dining table but is in need a good clean before anything else can be done to it. It also looks like mountain ash and is dark brown in colour. I will take back to its original colour and likewise not change it.

My question then is what is your preferred timber cleaner and degreaser?

It's good to be back on here after some time absent.

Kind regards,

Chris

[MitchellMc]

Great to see you back on the site @BigFella1956! 

As someone who has never needed to use a degreaser on timber, for what purpose did you need it? Say I'm sanding timber back and then varnishing it, I'll wipe it down with a damp tack cloth to remove contaminants before varnishing. If you have a surface that you are not sanding and it has actual greasy residue on it, the best product to break that down that I've found is dishwashing liquid. I'll make up a soapy mix, wipe down the surface and then rinse with fresh water. You can also use Sugar Soap wipes to clean a surface before painting or varnishing.

There are also products like Feast Watson Wood Clean, which I've found to be exceptionally effective in restoring old and greyed timber that had marks and was discoloured.

Once you prepare the timber, you might want to show our helpful members some images so they can recommend products tailored to your needs.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Mitchell

[BigFella1956]

Mitchell, Thanks very much for your feedback - the cleaning is part of my prep work (of which we all know the value!) and I assumed that I would need to remove any dirt and/or grease from the surface before I sanded. Neither piece of furniture has greasy residue so, based on your advice, all I need to do is sand till I'm happy with the result at which time I will gladly post some images and seek further advice. Regards, Chris

[MitchellMc]

Typically not, @BigFella1956. Unless there is a film of dirt or grease, sanding will remove contaminants from the surface. You could go over them with the Sugar Soap wipes if you wished, though.

I'll be looking forward to seeing your results. Make sure to take plenty of before images too.

Mitchell