Quote:
Originally Posted by Argus25
Quote:
Originally Posted by PJL
You don't need to wreck your radio with a chemical paint remover. Do what the professional restorers do and use a 'Cabinet Scraper'. Dried out cellulose varnish will scrape off very easily and with a little practice you will not damage the veneer,
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The problem with this is twofold; that there are some vintage cabinet coatings which have cured to a hardness and are so adherent to the surface that they are totally resistant to scraping without damaging the underlying wood or veneer.
In addition the color of the coating can be obvious in corners and crevices where its difficult to scrape.They only way to remove this properly is with a paint stripper, not mechanically with scraping and especially not with sandpaper.
But the thing is, it has to be a type of benign paint stripper that does not damage wood/veneer or the adhesives that attach that to the surface in the case of a veneered surface.
The attached photos show three restored cabinets, all done with the aid of the correct paint stripper for the task that I have talked about on other threads. No damage at all to the wood or adhesives, no scraper makes either, no "practice" needed to avoid veneer damage.
Sometimes veneer can be quite soft, if it is indented with force it stays that way then marks and lines can be very difficult to hide, especially with a satin or gloss finish. So I would recommend against scraping surfaces, unless the existing old cellulose coat is very suited to it, poorly adherent and very lightly colored. |
Exactly. There's no "professional way" of stripping a radio cabinet, it's the method that best suits that particular radio with its shape and finish. For example the Hacker Mayflower that has a very hard finish and nooks, crannies and moulding edges to deal with. To me, scraping has its place in the rather limited role of removing old, cracked, flaky cellulose from flat, easily accessible surfaces.