As a furniture finish ages, it may develop a variety including cracking, crazing, peeling and discoloring. In fact, a certain amount of yellowing is a quality to expect from aging nitrocellulose lacquer, which is one of the most common finishes. You can not always correct a finish, but sometimes you have no choice but to strip and refinish it. However, determine if wax causes the yellowing before you do this.
Removing Old Wax
Layers of paste and furniture wax removing them is something that you should do periodically, and eventually dull any furniture finish. Spirits dissolve without affecting the finish, waxes, so all you need to do is rub off the wax using a cloth dampened with this solvent. To ensure that you receive of the wax, then work in sections that are little. Rub the entire section , then rearrange the rag and rub again. Continue until you find no discoloration on the rag, which indicates that all of the wax is gone.
Yellowed Lacquer — Fast Fix
Nitrocellulose lacquer’s pure yellowing bespeaks a piece of furniture’s era, and sometimes it’s ideal to accept it. You can fix them lighten the yellowing by spraying on a fresh coat and scuffing the finish with 220-grit sandpaper when the finish has other defects that detract from the appearance of this piece. The finish that is old re-softens when coated with fresh material and amalgamates into it. This therapy eliminates scratches and cracks but it might have you to be satisfied by enough of a impact.
Stripping and Sanding
After the yellowing has to go, so will the finish, so sand you’ve got to strip and refinish the piece. You might need a more powerful, methylene chloride-based stripper to remove layers of varnish, although Many lacquers and shellacs, particularly after they’ve aged sufficient to turn yellow, come off using chemicals, such as acrylic. Following the finish is gone and the stripper’ve neutralized with water and coated the wood, avoid a recurrence of the issue using a finish that doesn’t yellow. Before you employ it, in case it has also turned yellow you might need to bleach the wood.
Non-Yellowing Finishes
Furniture finishes formulated using a water base are prone to yellowing than people using a solvent base. Possibilities consist of polyurethane varnish and acrylic lacquer. Acrylic lacquer is not a suspension of plastic in water that acts like lacquer, although a legitimate lacquer. You can spray or brush on both types of finish. If a piece of furniture made out of maple, a wood or birch was in direct sunlight. If that’s the case, treating it with 2-part wood bleach before you finish it should lighten the places, but you might not have the ability to restore the original color.