Restaining Stand

[YamahaF934]

Here is a picture of a stand I recently acquired.

I am wanting to re-stain or re-finish this stand. I am clueless when it comes to staining. Do I need to chemically remove the clear coat? Is there an easier way to re-finish with a laquer?

 

[Raamiah]

I'm not an expert but if you want it to look nice then you'll have to strip the wood of anything on there currently with sandpaper and then reapply with the stain you want to use. You will probably need some steel wool too when the stain is all done to smooth that out when it's all done.
I'm sure you'll have handier guys than me give you better tips but I hope this helps a bit.

 

[Peppie]

The easiest way to get rid of the finish that is on it now is with chemicals.
Does the stand have a live aquarium on it now? If it does the only way to do it is with sandpaper a lot of sand paper.
If it does not go to the big box stores and look in the finish product section and get the remover that has a citrus base and follow the direction. It is simple to use.

 

[YamahaF934]

Ya its not set up right now. Starting slow and getting everything set up. I will look into that. Will I still have to sand it after I use the chemical?

 

[DonW]

Your photo is not very detailed. but at any rate by the looks of it the stand is commercially made. By the way the finish is chipping and pealing its a commercial finish. Meaning the wood is generally sealed with a vinyl sealer then sprayed with a tinted top coat. When you see the finish deteriorating like this it means that the top coat is separating from the from the vinyl sealer. The top coat is usually lacquer or conversion varnish. Lacquer will come off real easy but conversion vanish will be a bear. Its the vinyl near under the finish that is going to give you the most grief. Once the wood is sealed the chances of it ever taking a stain properly again is pretty much slim to none.

Don

 

[YamahaF934]

Oh well thanks for being honest. It's an Oceanic tank, so I assume it's an Oceanic stand. Which would make me believe it's sealed like you said. So I should not try and remove the old stain? How don't tell.

What about just going black paint or stain?

 

[eww]

The way I was told to tell if it was conversion varnish or not was to get a cotton ball or something similar wet with denatured alcohol and let it sit on the finish someplace for 5-10 minutes. If the top coat is dissolved when you come back then it is not conversion varnish and the chemical stripper mentioned before will work for removing the finish. If the finish is unchanged then it is conversion varnish and the only method of removing it is by sanding, sanding and more... you guessed it... sanding. Also if it is conversion varnish and you don't want to sand it all off then I believe painting is your only option. This will still involve sanding but only enough to rough up the surface for a primer coat to adhere to.

Keep in mind that even if it is a finish that can be stripped it will be difficult to get a nice even stain color as the wood has already be stained once and in my experience it doesn't like to accept stain as easily as it does when it is new raw wood.

 

[DonW]

The issue with re staining is not that it was stained before. If it was just stained then you could easily re stain. The process for tinted finish is to completely seal the wood then the tinted finish is layed on top. Factories and furniture makers do this to save cost on materials and time on finishing. Thats why the chipped areas appear to be bare wood. The easiest way to fix this stand is to sand it down, reapply a sealer like vinyl sealer or even shellac then reapply a tinted top coat. Easy if you have it tore down and in a shop with spray equipment.

If you want to just repaint. Sand the bad areas real good and scuff the rest of the stand. Apply a coat or two of de waxed shellac your doing this so you dont have finish issues. Basically block the old finish so your paint doesn't fish eye. Your new painted finish can be spray paint if thats what you want to do. If your doing this in the house then obviously that's not a good idea. Your better off finding a waterbase poly acrylic wood finish and mixing it with 20% waterbased wood stain. Apply the mixture and you will have a new solid finish just as if you painted it without all the fumes in your house.

Eww, The alcohol trick only works for homeowner type finishes. Precat lacquers are not going to be affected by a little alcohol. NC lacquers will be dissolved but they havent been used commercially for decades.

Don

 

[YamahaF934]

Oh man you are scaring me! Sounds tougher than I thought. I will take more pictures tonight to see if you can better judge it. I was planning a darker stain so maybe that won't look so bad.

What about just a touch up stain or anything to just do the bottom.

The stand is in the garage. Thanks for the help. I like to go into projects well prepared.

 

[DonW]

Oh man you are scaring me! Sounds tougher than I thought. I will take more pictures tonight to see if you can better judge it. I was planning a darker stain so maybe that won't look so bad.

What about just a touch up stain or anything to just do the bottom.

The stand is in the garage. Thanks for the help. I like to go into projects well prepared.

Its really not that bad. The issue is that its a running tank.

Don

 

[YamahaF934]

Don, it's not a running tank. It's dry right now!

 

[DonW]

Don, it's not a running tank. It's dry right now!

My bad misread your post. Grab some sandpaper and start going at it. When you think you got the whole thing down to bare wood shoot me a pm. Ill tell you how to test for finish compatibility.

Don

 

[YamahaF934]

Here is another picture of the stain. Looks to be boiling up.

 

[DonW]

Your pics confirm what I thought. There is no stain on that stand its a tinted top coat. By the way its flaking and not coming off in bigger chunks Id guess its precat lacquer. With the way the panel portion is amber-ed under the finish Id guess they probably did not use vinyl seal but instead used shellac or clear stain base, probably shellac since its cheaper and dries faster.

Sand the whole thing down to as bare as wood as you can get. Fill the open joints with some sort of wood filler that matches the wood. Get back to me when your ready to re apply finish. Are you in Oly? If we cant come up with an option you like you might want to bring it over to my place and I can respray a tinted finish with my next production run.

Don