Preparing old cabs for refinishing

[robertbartsch]

I acquired two very nice floor cabinents that are about 40 years old and which will hold 15" woofs, compression drivers and horn lenses.

They are lightly scratched in places and I beleive the existing finish is varnish over stain. These are hardwood, not veneer. In some areas like the moulding around the top and bottom, there is a film of wax crud (??) from years of use.

Anyway, on a hunch, I took a scotch pad and some mineral sprits and cleaned the wax crud from one of the moulding pieces.

This seemed to work well with the spirts softening the old finish a tad and lightening it in color. After an hour or so the finish hardened again and the spirit bath did not seem to do any lasting harm to the old finish.

I plan to use the mineral spirts and scotch pad for the entire surface and then I will lightly sand the boxes and finish them with a product that contains both stain and a satin poly finish that matches the old finish.

Question; Is the spirit bath a good idea?

Thx...

[saeman]

Mineral spirits and a scotch brite pad are perfect for cleaning old oil residue and also wax buildup. It is not effective in removing varnish and other poly types of finish.

If you intend to refinish these cabinets with a poly base stain/varnish type of coating you will need to do more than clean the surface with spirits. Where the finish is thin you are likely to end up with bare wood but where the finish is thick the mineral spirits/greenie will not cut thru the finish. After applying your new finish you are likely to have an uneven appearance in the finish - spots - blotches - what ever you choose to call them.

You should consider using a stripper to remove ALL old finish, clean the surface with your greenie and mineral spirits and then finish sand before using your new finish material.

If your cabinets were oil finished your approach would be just fine. If these are original JBL cabinets with original finish, it is likely lacquer. Up thru the mid 70's they sprayed various lacquer finishes over bare wood and stained cabinets. You'll play hell getting the laquer off with stripper and never get it off with mineral spirits.

[subwoof]

Don't forget to use a good shopvac to suck the sawdust out of the grain before finishing them. This makes a BIG difference....