# Stain oak cabinets



## jemhunter (May 19, 2016)

Hello all,

Newby here. I have orange oak cabinets with a glossy/skinny protective coat, and I would like to stain them with a darker color such as mahogany, java, or walnut. 

I have seen few of blogs showing usage of gel stain with polyacrylic top coat, but I am unclear whether I need to sand down the glossy coat on my cabinet first before apply the stain. I dont see them doing that step, but would the gel adhere well with that top coat in place?

I would like to avoid the sanding step if possible but dont want the final product to look bad. If I need to remove the top coat, is there a chemical that can strip it out? 

I saw this Rust-Oleum kit and it uses a deglosser solution (no sanding). Does anyone have any opinion on it? The process looks easy but the cost is not that attractive.

Lastly, it seems General Finishes is highly recommended, however I can't find it at any local stores. What would be a good alernative (old Masters, MinWax, Varathane)?

Many thanks


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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

More than likely you won't like the results of what you have in mind. At a basic level what you would be doing is putting a thin down paint over the top of the cabinets. Usually the darker you go the more it looks like paint instead of stain. Try the back side of a cabinet door that is seldom used to see if you like it before really considering it. I just had to go in someones house and remove this where a professional painter did this on handrails in a stairway. I had to take paint and varnish remover and strip the handrail down to bare wood, then sand it and stain and finish the wood. This is really the only way to go from a light finish to a dark one. You can only darken wood a little by applying pigment or dyes over the top. 

Whether you go over the top of the existing finish or strip it I would recommend a thorough cleaning of the cabinets first. I would first clean the cabinets with a wax and grease remover. In a kitchen cooking oils travel through the air and settle on the cabinets. If you strip the cabinets the oils gets dissolved and soaks into the wood during the stripping process so it's best to get it off first. If you plan to go over the old finish the next step would be to clean again with a product such as Krud Kutter Gloss Off. This would get any water soluble substance and plain dirt that still be on the surface. 

If you plan or recoating the cabinets I would use a varnish stain instead of gel stain. It will bond better than a gel stain to an existing finish. You won't be able to avoid sanding and it's a mistake to rely on deglossers. The old finish will have to be sanded with 220 grit or finer paper prior to recoating. This scratches the old finish to give a surface the new finish can bond to. Then it will need to be scuff sanded between each coat you apply. Once you achieve the color you want I would follow with one coat of a clear coat over the top for further protection. Usually with a finish of this type on the corner of the doors where it is handled you rub the finish off and the old finish starts showing through white. 

If you choose to remove the old finish that is doable but if you are skiddish about sanding be aware refinishing is a terribly messy job. You might want to hire it done. Lot of fumes, lot of sanding and the chemicals are difficult to keep off your skin. Strippers burn like fire. It's easy to clean off yourself but usually you don't know you have it on yourself until you feel the burn. What I normally do when refinishing a kitchen is remove the doors and drawers and take them to my shop and refinish them there where I have the space and equipment to do that. I can usually strip, sand and stain the cabinets in one day and come back the next day and spray the finish coat. I use lacquer for a finish which dries fast and I have a pressure pot and sprayer which makes it a lot easier to spray inside the cabinets. Generally I only strip and refinish the faceframes and sides of the cabinets. Usually you can either touch up or paint over the interior of the cabinets. Spraying clear on the inside usually is enough to make a dramatic improvement. 

Old Masters and Varathane would be alright to use. I don't care much for Minwax. Their stains are prone to fade and their finishes tend to fail prematurely.


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## LMHmedchem (Dec 16, 2010)

I have recently started using Citri-Strip,
http://www.amazon.com/Citri-Strip-QCG73801T-Varnish-Stripping-1-Quart/dp/B000QFCP1G

I recently stripped a dresser with this. The dresser had an original coat of stain and varnish that was around 80 years old. There was also a coat of oil based white paint, a coat of water based white, and a coat of blue latex. Allot of the blue was not in good shape. In many places, the Citri-Strip took all of it off in one swipe after sitting for 30 minutes. Some places took a second application and some scrubbing with steel wool. Overall, this was the easiest striping job I have ever done. There is no smell or fumes other than it smells like a citrus detergent. I didn't wear gloves because at first I just wanted to see if it worked and didn't do a very big area. I used a plastic scraper for most of it and I didn't feel any burn on my hands at all.

I wouldn't recommend that anyone use a stripper without proper ventilation, protective gloves, and protective eye ware. I am just reporting that the Citri-Strip was very unlike any other stripper I have used before and it was not at all nasty and worked very well. I did sanding 120, 180 with an orbital and then 220, 320, 400, with a block to finish it off. I was repainting it, so I went down pretty fine. I wouldn't go much past 180 if I was staining.


If it was me, I would probably strip and re-sand everything because I think that is the best way to make sure you end up with what you want. There are some cases where oak needs to have a filler applied before sanding because the grain raises unevenly and it's hard to get a perfectly flat surface without a filler. I don't know if that would be relevant on a cabinet or not.

*LMHmedchem*


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## m.n.j.chell (May 12, 2016)

Admitting some ignorance here ... but you can't "stain" old varnish or urethane, right? If you put a stain on old finish, it might stain the old finish, but it doesn't get to the wood. 
If you want to make it LOOK like a darker wood ... you need to strip the old finish off and stain the WOOD, not the old finish.

Again, I am more asking than stating. I've never attempted to stain wood with any finish on it. I've always stripped them down to bare wood first. There are several chemical stripping products available, but as Steve says, you have to be very careful using them ... they are very unpleasant when they get on your skin.


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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

mikechell said:


> Admitting some ignorance here ... but you can't "stain" old varnish or urethane, right? If you put a stain on old finish, it might stain the old finish, but it doesn't get to the wood.
> If you want to make it LOOK like a darker wood ... you need to strip the old finish off and stain the WOOD, not the old finish.
> 
> Again, I am more asking than stating. I've never attempted to stain wood with any finish on it. I've always stripped them down to bare wood first. There are several chemical stripping products available, but as Steve says, you have to be very careful using them ... they are very unpleasant when they get on your skin.


When new wood is finished the wood is colored with pigments or dyes or both. It penetrates into the wood. Then normally a chemical coating is put over the top and in the case of polyurethane which is often use literally is a plastic coating. Any stain applied after being coated is just going to sit on the surface. If it was an oil stain it would be more like coating the finish with dirt. There isn't anything to hold it to the old finish. Then if you put a finish over the top the finish would adhere to the dirt instead of the old finish and peal off. 

Gel Stains are like you mixed some oil stain with a little varnish. It's mostly stain but the varnish in it would bond to another finish to some extent. Over the top of something completely non-porous it won't hold up for an extended length of time. It would seem to work but start pealing off long before it should. It was originally developed to finish a textured fiberglass door to look more like real wood. 

There are ways to darken an existing finish which you can't tell it's been modified but it's like anything else has limits. You can't take light wood like oak with a clear finish and make it almost black. There is a point where the wood starts looking more like it's been painted. A person can use a varnish stain or which is most common polyshades. This product is like you mixed paint with a clear coating. It watered down enough that it goes on transparent but multiple coats start looking bad. More transparent are dye stains. They are more similar to ink so a little goes a long way and then coated with a clear coating.


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## jemhunter (May 19, 2016)

Thank you everyone for your advices. It does make sense to me that we have to sand, stain, then protect. That is how I did my front door.

I just ran across that rust-oleum kit and the gel stain that claim that sanding wasn't needed. So I thought I would check here first. I also just found out about the MinWax Polyshades but reviews seems mixed.

After reading this thread, I am inclined to sand. My cabinets are not flat and have some moulding. Is it okay to use the citri-strip on the non-flat parts and sand only the flat panels?

There was one suggestion here about strip and re-sand. Since I am sanding, the top coat would be gone during sanding. Why need to strip? I am not clear on this part.

Thanks again for all the tips.


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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

If you were refinishing a car then sanding a finish off would be acceptable. With wood the finish penetrates into the wood and seals it so sanding a finish off there would be spots here and there especially in hard to reach spots the wood would still be sealed. Then when you apply a stain the stain can't soak into the wood and it ends up being blotchy. The darker stain you plan to use the more this would show up. This is the reason anytime you refinish wood you should always start with a paint and varnish remover. 

Citristrip is a very mild remover made popular for the mild fumes. Being so mild you have to be prepared to soak the finish for a very long time and strip the cabinets at least twice to get the finish off followed by extra sanding. If it were me I would use the strongest remover I could find. The fumes are bad and if you get it on your skin burns like hell fire but you only have to strip once. Sometimes you can get professional grade removers at antique shops. If that is unavailable to you the best over the counter remover I've used is Kleen Strip Premium Stripper. It's available at most of the box stores and even walmart. It's also a semi-paste remover which is important for what you are doing. It clings to vertical surfaces. 

Regardless of what remover you use let the remover do the work. Apply the remover and keep applying the remover keeping it wet until the finish practically falls off before scraping. It places with details you can't get to with a scraper you can use a brass brush to break the finish loose. Once you start scraping you need to work fast as the old finish will try to dry back. It's important to as quick as possible rinse off what is left with the right solvent for the remover you are using. With a solvent based remover inside of a house I normally use lacquer thinner. It's flammable so anything with an open flame needs to be turned off and provide ample ventilation. On large surfaces only work an area about 3'x3' at a time. Too big of an area when the scraping starts you can't get it rinsed off before the finish dries back.


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## jemhunter (May 19, 2016)

Thanks a lot Steve. Really appreciate you taking the time providing valuable details. Based on my understand thus far, this is the preferred process:

1) Use a string stripper to remove the protective clear top coat (http://www.amazon.com/Klean-Strip-Paint-Stripper-qt-brushable/dp/B000KKOR1S)
2) Sand the wood
3) Apply a wood conditioner with a brush (http://www.amazon.com/Minwax-61500-Stain-Conditioner-Quart/dp/B002OTUYCY)
4) Apply stain with a cloth (http://www.amazon.com/Cabot-1440008125005-Interior-Stain-American/dp/B00173AJBY)
5) Apply polyurethane with a brush (http://www.amazon.com/Minwax-63000-Drying-Polyurethane-Clear/dp/B000C010J8)
6) Apply Thompson water seal with a brush (http://www.amazon.com/THOMPSONS-WATERSEAL-041851-16-Transparent-Stain/dp/B00IKVLXYI/)

Not sure if water seal is needed, but my cabinets are in a bathroom. 

I might go with different products/brand depending on what I can find at local stores, but just providing links for clarity. 

Does this sound right?

Many thanks
Joe


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## texas1960 (Jan 6, 2012)

Somewhere along the way things got lost. Once you apply the poly nothing else will adhere to it. Poly itself is waterproof to an extent. Thompson's water proofing sealer is designed for outdoor projects.


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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

jemhunter said:


> Thanks a lot Steve. Really appreciate you taking the time providing valuable details. Based on my understand thus far, this is the preferred process:
> 
> 1) Use a string stripper to remove the protective clear top coat (http://www.amazon.com/Klean-Strip-Paint-Stripper-qt-brushable/dp/B000KKOR1S)
> 2) Sand the wood
> ...


Step 3 you should skip. A wood conditioner is a sealer which makes the surface of the wood more uniform in woods like pine, maple, alder or birch. These woods have hard and soft spots where when stained have light and dark spots. It's known as blotching. Oak is not a wood prone to blotch so a wood conditioner isn't used. 

Step 4 is alright but you could also use a brush or spray stain. The important part is to wipe the excess of the surface of the wood soon after applying it and use only one coat of stain. Test the stain on scrap wood to see if it's the right color first. If the color isn't dark enough or too dark that is the time to change stain. If it's too dark you can add paint thinner to the stain to lighten it. If it's too light it's easier to purchase a darker color. Most stains you could add more pigment to it to darken it but not Minwax. The only thing you can modify the color of Minwax stains is with a dye stain. 

Step 5, you can apply it with a brush. Use the softest brush you can find and apply the poly as thin as possible with as few strokes as possible. The more you brush it the more the brush marks will show. A lot of folks have better luck using a wipe on poly. This isn't something I use so I don't have any tips there. I spray almost everything I finish with. 

Step 6 won't work. Thompsons is a sealant a person uses on a outdoor deck and isn't needed for what you are doing. It for sure shouldn't be put over the top of polyurethane and wouldn't really help you to put it on under the polyurethane.


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## jemhunter (May 19, 2016)

Thanks a lot all. I think I have a good understanding of it now. Phew so many products, so many choices, all thee nuances with different woods. Just learned a tad from this thread alone.

It does look like a lot of work. I keep reading those blogs about Gel Stain and it does look a lot simpler. Almost to simple. What is the catch?

I know since it goes on top of the existing top coat, it doesn't penetrate, and the wood grain would be less visible. Personally, I am not a big fan of the pronounced pattern of oak. It looks hard on the eyes to me and I wouldn't mind seeing less of it and a more uniform surface (such as maple). However I don't like paint neither because the surface is totally flat. Something is between would be good. Looking at the online pictures from gel stain, it is not obvious how the wood texture looks like. Most examples were dark Java color making harder to seeing from a photo.

Any advice on Gel Paint? 

Thanks in advance
Joe


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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

You shouldn't use a gel stain over another coat of finish. Doing that a varnish stain such as polyshades should be used. A gel stain should be used on a surface at least a little porous. The catch is these produces are like using thinned down paint. Using more than the thinnest coat of the stuff and you might as well use paint, it will look like it. Not long ago I had to refinish a handrail in someones house which a professional painter used Java varnish stain over oak. All together it took 40 hours work to fix, stripping and refinishing the old finish with a brand new floor underneath.

Also applying pigment over another finish when it gets chipped or worn it shows the white wood underneath.


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## 1acre (Apr 7, 2016)

I'll jump in here, and give my 2 cents as a diy'er, wannabe dude. I've used general finishes gel stain (Java) to redo some trim and an entertainment center in my house. Technically, my wife did, and she ignored my advice and followed some bloggers. I'll admit, going from the golden honey oak to a dark stain looks pretty good. Yes, I suggested to my wife after looking at it that she should just paint it. But, she is happily plugging along with the GF gel stain. We have a friend who is an interior designer and when she saw our trim she was amazed and thought it looked "professional." YMMV. For those of us in the weeds, we'd barf all over the place. 

Another thought, since it is orange oak, see what they finished the wood with. Start with denatured alcohol, if it doesn't gum up, do to lacquer thinner. Some of the things in my 1990 house have shellac, all the kitchen cabinets have lacquer. Just getting the film finish off will give you more options than going over the finish. If the cabinets are of recent vintage, you'll probably have some type of poly/varnish. 

As steve suggested, try a sample on the back. See if you like it or not. The worse thing you can do is rush something like this.


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## jemhunter (May 19, 2016)

@1acre, glad that your project looked good. I will be happy if my better half says it looks professional when the job is done 
@Steve, reading more blogs on gel stain, I saw some folks do a bit of light sanding to help the gel to adhere. Not sure if that is the same as being little porous. My guess is no.

I was mentally ready to do the sanding (even bought a sheet sander LOL), but I misunderstood that stripping was still required. Because my house is fairly small, the fume and odors would probably be everywhere and will be miserable for kids and everyone. Tonight I will try a first coat on the back of a cabinet door to see how it goes.


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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

Scuff sanding will help the adhesion but I still don't recommend using a gel stain over another finish. It will work for a while but would wear off a lot quicker than if you used a varnish stain. Then you wouldn't have much of a choice but to strip and refinish.


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## jemhunter (May 19, 2016)

Thanks Steve. Could you please give an example of varnish stain? May be I came across one but didn't realize. Does varnish stain penetrate more?

Once the gel stain wears off, can we not reapply it? Probably won't see any pattern of the wood once to many layers are applied.


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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

I think the most common one in the stores is polyshades. It doesn't penetrate but it bonds better. If you were making some homemade you would mix an oil based enamel with an oil based varnish or polyurethane. Gel stain is like you took an oil stain and mixed some varnish with it. 

Either the gel stain or the varnish stain if it wears off would look about the same. It's just a problem with putting color over a finish. It doesn't come off uniform it's where it's handled the most. The picture is the only one I could find online. it would wear off something like this. Can you picture re-applying color to this spot and have it blend in with the rest of it. It's just almost impossible. on cabinets around the pulls where you hit it with your finger nails and the edges of the doors where handled would go first. Then the finish in front of the sink where water runs down the front of the cabinet would lift.


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## RandyReed (Jul 30, 2014)

jemhunter said:


> Hello all,
> 
> Newby here. I have orange oak cabinets with a glossy/skinny protective coat, and I would like to stain them with a darker color such as mahogany, java, or walnut.
> 
> ...


You could use polyshades and brush it on. All you would need to do is first wipe them down good with Naptha. Then go over them with a liquid sandpaper/deglosser, which itches the finish and allows your next finish to adhere. Then follow up with polyshades and your done. Polyshades is a tinted polyurethane which is actually similar to a toner.
http://www.minwax.com/wood-products/one-step-stain-and-finishes/minwax-polyshades

Here are the colors:
http://www.minwax.com/wood-products/one-step-stain-and-finishes/minwax-polyshades

Like I said, you can brush on this product, but spraying it is better in my opinion.


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## 1acre (Apr 7, 2016)

Gel stain can work. It just takes some homework. Any wood will have the stain worn off if not finished with a "clear coat." You can't just apply gel stain without a finish coat on top of it and expect it to perform the same as something that is coated with poly (pick your poison). Figure out what you have as the current finish, put on some gel stain and then film finish it with something.


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## jemhunter (May 19, 2016)

@Steve, thanks, I hear you. The durability is a concern for sure. Would this gel stain last me 6-8 years? If I have to strip it an sand it after that, that is fine. That would have to be done now if I use a penetrating stain. Thus I might be able to postpone it for a while. I have to say that my cabinets are in fairly good shape after living in the house for 16 years. No visible wear and chips. The clear coat shows a bit of cracking at places, but that is it. Standing 3ft away from them, they look almost new. I guess my kids are being fairly gentle on our equipments.
@Randy, did you have good experience w/ PolyShades? I saw them at Lowes and HomeDepot and was very interested due to its ability to go over the current clear coat. But reviews are rather mixed. In general MinWax products don't seem to get much love.
@1acre, I would definitely put a protective coat over the gel stain. In few blogs, people were putting 2-3 coats in the areas that are expected to have more heavy usage.


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## RandyReed (Jul 30, 2014)

jemhunter said:


> @
> 
> [MENTION=5018]Randy, did you have good experience w/ PolyShades? I saw them at Lowes and HomeDepot and was very interested due to its ability to go over the current clear coat. But reviews are rather mixed. In general MinWax products don't seem to get much love.


Thats because there are alot of people who dont know how to use minwax products properly.

Yes, I have used polyshades with great results. Again, I spray applied, no brushing. It all comes down to prep work and application. As long as you use the deglosser before you apply the polyshades as recommended you will not have any problems. 

You can buy a quart of deglosser at lowes for $7, and a quart goes a long way. I used it on a kitchen cabinet refinish job and didnt even use the whole quart. Adhesion is great, again, when done properly. Read the instructions!


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## jemhunter (May 19, 2016)

Oh big surprise. I tried gel stain on half of the back of the door after sanding it w/ 320 paper grit. Applied gel w/ a foam brush and wiped it with a rag.

Guess what, virtually all the gel was gone and the color was barely changed. Visually, it's hard to tell the difference in color. Because I stained 1/2 the door, the only part I could tell the difference was at half line. It's that mild.

Really no clue what my top coat is, but the gel can't stick to it. I will try the deglosser as Randy suggested.
@Randy, did you have to sand after deglossing?

Thanks all.


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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

You have to think of a gel stain like it was regular stain mixed with a little varnish. If you brush it on and wipe it off with a rag of course the color will be gone. Going over another finish there is nothing for the stain to penetrate into. It's more like paint so you would brush it on and leave it. Personally I don't care for gel stains. If you are going over another finish I would rather use a dye and then clear coat. It would be more transparent. It has to be sprayed though. Brushing, I would rather use a product like polyshades. 

You also have to be careful what you put polyshades over. Polyurethane inherently has adhesion problems so if you went over lacquer or a conversion varnish it wouldn't adhere very well. It would be better over a varnish or polyurethane.


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## jemhunter (May 19, 2016)

@Steve, thanks again for the explanation. I understand what your are describing and it does make sense. 

I was just doing this because that is how it was described in those blogs and youtube video. They showed after the first coat is wiped, the color is already half as dark as the final product. That is very far than the result I got today. The reason why they wiped w/ a rag was to achieve a uniform surface, no streaky lines. 

I have to say I am unclear about all these technical terms. I understand oil vs water base products and that's about it. Now I read about deglosser, denaturalized alcohol, mineral spirits, stripper, varnish, lacquer, poly urethane, poly acrylic, shellac, water sealer... and not sure the nuances and different application here.

Furthermore, few years back, I refinished my front door and blindly followed the instruction given by the manufacturer. I didn't understood what was going on but just trusted them and it came out pretty good  But knowing what I learned from this thread, that process doesn't seem right. Essentially I mixed danish oil with the Cabot 19200 (which is a clear wood toned deck & siding stain) and used it as a stain. And used that same Cabot as a protective coat (scratching my head here because that is called a stain, and why a clear solution can be a stain). That door also had a marine varnish coat on it and I didn't know about stripping. I just sanded to bare wood and stained.


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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

A deglosser is more of a cleaner than anything. Myself I don't use one for de-glossing purposes. There's no substitute for scuff sanding. A finish will bond far better to the scratches from sanding than a surface cleaned. 

Denatured alcohol is a wood alcohol made for thinning shellac or mixing aniline dyes. 

Stripper is self explanatory. It contains chemicals to soften or dissolve dried finishes. What is not commonly known is the type that is a solvent base contains methylene chloride. This chemical evaporates very quickly so they add wax to the solution to retard evaporation. If this wax isn't thoroughly rinsed off it will screw with the new finish making it either take forever to dry or not adhere at all. Fun fact: methylene chloride, the main ingredient in paint stripper is also used to make decaffeinated coffee and drinks. They soak the coffee beans in the chemical to strip the caffeine out. It's a milder formula but the same chemical. 

Polyurethane. Any finish is a mixture of resins and a solvent. Polyurethane is a mixture of plastic resins (poly as in polymer)and urethane resins as well as linseed oil and sometimes tung oil. It makes a very hard durable finish however a lot of people don't like the plastic look the finish gives. Since it's an oil based finish it tends to yellow as it age. This may not be suitable for light colored wood. 

Polyacrylic. It's a mixture of plastic and acrylic resins with water as a solvent and without the linseed oil or tung oil. Since it's more plastic than anything it tends to remain clear. It's not as durable as it's oil based counterpart but close. It is very thin and because it has water in it raises the grain making the wood a lot rougher. To overcome being thin and raising the grain it takes many more coats with a lot more elbow grease to achieve the same finish. An alternative is to seal the wood with a de-waxed shellac prior to using the waterborne finish. This will block the negative effects of the water. The shellac does yellow too but a single coat hardly shows.

Shellac is a product from India. There is a lac bug there that secretes the shellac. All the manufacturer does is clean and filter it, mix it with alcohol and put it in a can. It does have a shelf life of about six months so try not to buy a can with a lot of dust on the can. They should date it like pre-catalyzed lacquer but I've never seen a date. A person that likes working with shellac should buy it in flake form. Already dry shellac has a pretty much unlimited shelf life. You can mix alcohol with the flakes and have fresh shellac to work with. Another shellac product is Zinsser Sealcoat. It's the same shellac which the company refines more and filters the natural wax out of the finish. This de-waxed shellac can be used as a sealer for a multitude of different finishes. 

A water sealer is a thin exterior finish intended to give more water resistance to woods already water resistant such as cedar, redwood or pressure treated. It's something that also requires frequent re-treating and will not work on types of wood which rot easily. 

The Cabot 19200 is a water sealer. It's called a stain even though it's clear because it's not considered a finish. Chemically the only difference between the Cabot 19200 and a stain is the stain has some pigment added to it. You would be better off putting a marine grade spar varnish over the Cabot stain. A spar varnish is a exterior varnish designed to be softer and more elastic so it expands and contracts with the wood that expands and contracts from the weather extremes. 

Generally it's not a good idea to sand a finish off wood when stripping. Sanding tends to get what is on the surface and leaves what has penetrated into the wood and sealed it. What often happens is you sand the finish off and it looks good and you apply a stain only to find out there are spots here and there that won't accept the stain making it blotchy. The spots that won't accept the stain still has the old finish in the wood. It's always best to start with paint stripper any time wood is being refinished.


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## 1acre (Apr 7, 2016)

Again, I'd start by seeing what the finish is. 

There is an entire process in Flexner's book. Outlined in Flexner's article here as well. http://www.popularwoodworking.com/techniques/finishing/flexner-on-finishing-refinishing-furniture

Go thru these solvents until something gums up (in order) - Denatured Alcohol, lacquer thinner, xylene. Hopefully you luck out with one of these. Again, what is the age of the cabinets?


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## RandyReed (Jul 30, 2014)

jemhunter said:


> @Randy, did you have to sand after deglossing?
> 
> Thanks all.


No, you do not have to sand after using the deglosser. The deglosser etches the finish so that another finish will adhere to it. Deglossers work especially well where you have carvings and can not sand those areas as well as you should. 

The only time I sand a piece of furniture or cabinets that need refinishing now is when the surface itself is not smooth and needs to be sanded first before refinishing. I now wipe the piece down with Naptha, then go over the piece with a deglosser real well, wait 15 minutes, and start refinishing the piece. Its that simple.

You would be surprised how well the adhesion is when using a deglosser. I tested a kitchen cabinet door at work using the cross hatch method and the adhesion passed with flying colors.


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## jemhunter (May 19, 2016)

@1acre, thanks for the link. That's exactly what I need. My house was built in 1999 and those are the original cabinets installed by the builder.
@Steve, thanks wow, that's lot of typing. Really appreciated it. Regarding my front door, the reason why I had to refinish it was because my brother in laws originally told us to put a marine spar varnish on it. Then the color of the door turned yellow/orange after 6 months or so. The color changed so much that my HOA noticed how it didn't look like other houses and asked me to redo it. Luckily I didn't get blotchy result although I sanded directly that spar varnish w/o stripping. At the time I naively thought sanding would take out everything needed and wood would be just like it was originally.


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## jemhunter (May 19, 2016)

@Randy, thanks for sharing your experience. After applying the deglosser, I need to wipe it off w/ water right?


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## RandyReed (Jul 30, 2014)

jemhunter said:


> @Randy, thanks for sharing your experience. After applying the deglosser, I need to wipe it off w/ water right?


No......

1. wipe the piece down with naptha really well. Let dry, which it will dry pretty quickly.
2. wipe the deglosser over piece really good with a lint free rag. I use a microfiber cloth.
3. Let it sit for 15 minutes.
4. Apply polyshades, if that's what you intend to use.
5. Drink a beer and say "man, that was easy!"

Of course test a small section first with the polyshades to make sure that's the color you want..... Maybe the bottom of a shelf or something.


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## jemhunter (May 19, 2016)

No beer for me @Randy. Not yet.

I applied the deglosser and the gel stain right after. It still would not stick. I do see a slight difference in color, so it's sticking a bit more than without the deglosser, but nowhere near the of the finish. At this rate I would need 25 coats LOL.

This is a picture of the front of my cabinet, I find it extremely hard to sand the moulding on it. Liquid products are my only hope.

Thanks much


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## RandyReed (Jul 30, 2014)

After applying the deglosser, make sure you wait 15 minutes before moving on to the stain.

Here are directions for using a gel stain over an existing finish:
http://m.woodcraft.com/articles/764/how-to-use-oil-base-gel-stain-over-existing-finishes.aspx

Here for using polyshades, which in my opinion would be a better option:
http://www.minwax.com/how-to-finish-wood/change-stain-color-with-polyshades/


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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

jemhunter said:


> @*1acre*, thanks for the link. That's exactly what I need. My house was built in 1999 and those are the original cabinets installed by the builder.
> 
> @*Steve*, thanks wow, that's lot of typing. Really appreciated it. Regarding my front door, the reason why I had to refinish it was because my brother in laws originally told us to put a marine spar varnish on it. Then the color of the door turned yellow/orange after 6 months or so. The color changed so much that my HOA noticed how it didn't look like other houses and asked me to redo it. Luckily I didn't get blotchy result although I sanded directly that spar varnish w/o stripping. At the time I naively thought sanding would take out everything needed and wood would be just like it was originally.


That is a draw back to using oil based finishes, they will yellow over time. There are some spar varnishes that will hold up longer though. The best I know of is Epifanes. The worst is Minwax. Cabot makes one that is pretty good.


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## jemhunter (May 19, 2016)

Geez, looks like the side panels are not oak wood but plywood with a oak print on it. After looking from inside the cabinet, the front frame has pattern, but the side frame is a white board (like those used for shelves).

This picture of the side frame, the chip reveals (on the line about 1/3 from the right) something that looks like plywood underneath.

If that the case, whatever we put on top of the side panel won't look like the front right? Unless we paint everything.

Thanks much and sorry if I have wasted everyone's time here. Should have look more closely.


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