Woodie Restoration Part 4: Woodie Refinishing Guide - Preparation By Rick Mack

Wood Preparation, Good Words, Meditation & Sanding

No matter which finish you choose for your woodie, you will need to sand the wood thoroughly before applying the finish. This process is always the same, today as yesterday, no short cuts. For new wood or old wood in GOOD CONDITION, use a random orbital sander (Dewalt makes the best, you can’t miss ‘em, they are yellow!). Start with 80 grit to get out any heavy scratches or divits and to get off the dark, weathered top layer of the wood. Wear a dust mask! After the 80 grit, move on to sanding all the wood again with 100 grit which gets rid of the scratches left by the 80 grit then sand all again with 150 grit to remove scratches left by the 100 grit. In most cases, sanding down to 150 grit is more than adequate. Maybe sand down to 180 grit if you are obsessive. Further sanding with finer sandpaper on hardwood becomes an exercise in futility and can actually smooth the wood so much that it has no ‘tooth’ to hold the finish! You should dust off the wood between sanding grits so no errant pieces of sand from the previous grit will remain to put those nasty little circular scratches into your wood.

You must be sure to look very carefully for any remnant heavy scratches, they will appear under good light after you have finished sanding with 150 grit. If you do not find them and re-sand them out now, they will surely be visible after you have applied the finish. Take your time here.

If you need to bleach your old wood, do your full regimen of sanding first! After bleaching, you can only sand with 180 grit or 220 grit by hand to smooth out the fuzz raised by the bleaching process. The bleached layer of the wood is not very deep and it sands off easily. Read more about wood bleach in my separate instructions for bleaching.

When sanding softwoods such as mahogany, you will need to sand down to 180 grit for sure and perhaps down to 220 grit. If you plan to stain your mahogany panels the extra fine sanding will assure that there will be no tiny swirl marks left to trap the stain and look ugly under the varnish. Remember: paneling veneer is very thin. Be careful not to sand through it!

After sanding thoroughly through the grits with the random orbital sander, you might consider taking some 180 grit or 220 grit sandpaper in your hand and smoothing out the edges and corners of the hardwood and the difficult to reach inside corners. note: Varnish or any other finish will NOT stick well to a blade edge. Always ease the edges at least a little! Yes, it is best to sand ‘with the grain’ but you knew that.

Your new wood and old wood should now be ready for application of the finish.

One exception: If you have bleached any of your wood, it most likely will need to have some toning done as the A&B type wood bleaches tend to leave the wood looking more like bleached bone found on the desert than warm maple, birch or ash.

How to Tone the Wood

Go to your local art store and buy some oil based artists paint tubes. I use ‘raw sienna’ with a little ‘burnt sienna’ stirred up in a mix of 1/3 mineral spirits, 1/3 PURE-BOILED linseed oil and 1/3 lacquer thinner in a quart container. Squeeze a couple of toothpaste globs of the raw sienna into the mix and then a small squeeze of the burnt sienna, just a little now, put on the top and shake it up. Mix it very thoroughly. You will have to shake it up periodically during use as the color settles out fairly quickly. Keep handy another cup of the same thinner mix without any color added. Mix some of the colored mix with some of the clear thinner mix and apply with a brush to some of your bleached wood. Let it sit and soak for a few minutes then wipe it off with a clean rag. Try a thin mix first and add more color to the mix if you need it. Remember: THIS IS ART, NOT SCIENCE! With some practice and experimentation, you should be able to match the color of the bleached old wood with the color of the new wood. You can do this so well that old and new woods will be indistinguishable from one another! Note: Nothing can be done about weather-checking cracks or dry rot. These injuries are permanent unless you replace the wood pieces with this type of damage. Always try a test piece of wood first too and let the stain/toner dry for a couple of days before applying your finish.

Another option for adding tone to your wood is SHELLAC. This is a natural finishing material that comes in ‘blond’ and ‘amber’ tones right off the shelf. It makes a wonderful sealer under varnish and even catalyzed urethane as long as IT DOES NOT HAVE ANY WAX in it. Read the labels. You want it WAX FREE. The amber tone is very warm, again experiment. You can thin shellac with denatured alcohol. Do not use it under the POLYURETHANES!

If you wish to stain your mahogany paneling, there are a myriad of commercial stains available at your hardware or paint store. I have used many different brands, both water-based and solvent-based, most have worked very well. Pick a stain and try a test where it will not show. You might have to mix two stains together to achieve your desired color. Experiment!

Hint...

Continue to Part 5...