Furniture, Wood and Cabinetry Finishing - mahoganized Birch desk

My old desk is mahoganized Birch, I am refinishing it
to go with the mission style furniture in my living room.
I have stripped off the finish but need to know is there
an easier way to get rid of the red dye that is left without
having to sand the wood to death?

Thanks for your help! Lin

Try applying another round of stripper.

Did and done, lots of the wood seems saturated with red dye.
I can sand past it but it takes so much sanding, afraid I'll end
up with a miniature desk if I keep doing it! hehe

Do you think bleaching it will suck out the red or just make it
blotchey?

Too much sanding will cut through the veneer.

What color are you going to stain? Is the remaining color something that might be covered with it?

Have you tried scrubbing with the grain with the stripped and a stiff, non-metal brush?

Bleach will lighten the wood, probably not the stain.

You might try some lacquer thinner and a scrub brush. Lacquer thinner is highly inflammable, be careful.

HTH

hold on there folks..........

that red dye is most likely an Analine Dye stain . it was highly used back in the 40's , and extremely difficult to remove ; maybe even impossible . some professionals wont take a piece if Analine Dye stain is suspected , as results are sometimes "less than perfect" .bleaching MIGHT work . as chfite says , be careful sanding on veneered surfaces . either way ,you may be forced to use color in the top coat to hide the red .

if you need to experiment , do so on the under side of the table ; as long as the under side was also stained with the same dye , the results should be the same on the top side .


I did a piece like this ( 2 actually ) a few years back . one was a desk , which turned out pretty nice . the faint red that was left went well with the top , which I marbelized . the other piece was an old radio cabinet ; which turned out kind of , well , freaky red .

I got the red out of two of the drawers, but since it doesn't
want to come off the rest as easily, I'm going to redden those two drawers back up with something, then stain over the whole thing. Should look interesting when I'm done. I think you were right about that red dye.

one more possible solution for you .......

that would be to use a Dye stain to offset the original red . these can be ordered through supply catalogs . dye stains can be ordered in small quantities , so you could order several different colors . and by COLOR , I dont mean the traditional browns that are used on furniture . I mean yellow , black , blue , etc.

I by no means am an expert on colors , but if you choose this route , I would suggest black as a starting point to change the red to brown . a good contact for this type of advice would be someone at a paint shop ; sometimes these folks know thier colors pretty well . I guess it depends on how much time and effort you wish to spend on this project .

good luck

The catalogs supplying these stains also have the color charts for the colors.

great idea guys, thanks!
will let you know how
the whole thing turns out
:)

wow, I discovered that a lot of the red dye will come off with just water and a soft scrub brush! Its look much much better now :D

of course......................

water soluble...........why didnt I think of that:o


the water may raise the grain a bit , so you may have to do a little sanding prior to refinishing

usually if you want to (kill) the red in a piece you would add blue or green to your material to obtain a brown.