How To Remove Hardwood Stains
Posted on: 3 April 2018
Do you want to refinish an old piece of furniture? Hardwood flooring, besides being naturally beautiful, is a popular product for crafters in DIYers. This is why many people still prefer natural hardwood furniture over the modular, composite wood products that are becoming so popular. Being able to refinish your furniture allows you to breathe new life into an old piece years later. If you are going to refinish an old piece of furniture, you need to make sure that you correctly remove the existing stain. This article explains the best way to remove stains from hardwood.
Using Just Sandpaper
Usually, you end up with the fewest problems and the best results if you are able to remove your stain with just sandpaper. Of course, you will definitely need to use handheld sponge sanders to reach some of the corners and edges that the power sanders cannot reach.
When you just use sandpaper, instead of using any chemical stripping agents, you reduce the risk of damaging the wood. Also, you don't need to introduce any harmful chemicals into the atmosphere. Lastly, you don't need to buy the chemicals stripping agents, and you can save a little extra cash on the project. That being said, some stain is going to be very difficult to remove for a number of possible reasons. For instance, the stain might just be very old. It could be an industrial finish that is very stubborn. It could be a heavy duty varnish that might take ages to sand away.
Chemical Stripping Agents
Chemical stripping agents can break down these durable stains that aren't very easy to remove with just sanding techniques. Regardless, you should start off by trying to just sand off your stain before you invest in any chemical stripping agents. Use a medium grit sandpaper to help break down the stain. In fact, you should use the medium grit paper to get all of the stain off of the wood. Then, you use a high grit sandpaper to smooth out the wood and prepare it for the new stain. If you begin sanding, and it quickly becomes apparent that paper alone is not going to get the job done, then you can resort to a stripping agent.
Regardless of how you do it, the actual process of removing the stain from the furniture is usually the hardest part of the entire project. In the end, applying the new stain is actually comparatively easy work, and could be done with just a few rags or a spray gun.
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