My Family's Old School Method of Refinishing Furniture

I am sixty years of age. My uncle and one German craftsman were in the furniture refinishing business, and though he would sometimes not get a person's item back to him for months on end, people would bring him their furniture. Why? That word, craftsman. My Uncle Raymond could take a severely damaged piece of fine solid-wood furniture and match grain so closely those repairs would not even be identifiable as such!

My father was not a furniture craftsman, but he learned from my uncle, and in turn, he passed my uncle's methods on to me. In fact, I was part of the process in refinishing some lovely old mahogany pieces we had in our living room when I was a kid.

To begin, the piece of furniture would be put on newspaper in our garage. We would then paint the piece with a paintbrush and gelatinized marine paint and varnish remover. After letting it work on the piece, we would scrape it off with a scraper and a rag. The process was then repeated on small patches, as needed.

Letting the furniture dry out completely, we would then rub its surface with fine sandpaper. Just a bit, not too much - especially if veneers are involved. Then we would rub the surface with fine steel wool (no soap). This smoothes the surface greatly, as if the steel wool was a collection of planes shaving off trivial amounts of wood.

Making sure to get rid of all the sawdust and shavings, we would then stain the wood. My dad used oil-based stain and a rag. He would always avoid wax. He hated using anything wax-based. The amount of time the stain was allowed to remain on the wood was somewhat critical, as we desired to see the natural beauty of the wood grain, and not overpower it.

Wiping the wood thoroughly, we were then ready to shellac the wood. Yes, shellac. It was part of the process my family used. It smelled great (ethanol-based) and was quick to dry. When applying it, we used a goodbrush that did not lose hairs to spoil the finish. We also did very little brushing, as this could leave air bubbles in the surface, which are most undesirable.

After this was thoroughly dry, my dad would then apply a first coat of varnish. At the time we did this, we did not have polyurethane, as I recall. We didn't use a high-gloss varnish, but a semi-gloss (this, if I recall correctly, had a trace of pumice in it to take off the edge of the shine).

After allowing the first coat of varnish to thoroughly dry, my dad would use some wet 'rottenstone' (the finest pumice available) to gently polish off a bit of the shine. Not too much, or it would become dull. Also, we had to keep the rubbing uniform so that the resultant sheen would also be uniform on the piece.

He would then wash this off and dry the piece again. We repeated the varnishing process just described, and this resulted in a beautiful, richly grained and warmly colored, piece of fine furniture!

See how simple the process is? Yes, you, too, can refinish your furniture!