Furniture, Wood and Cabinetry Finishing - refinishing old oak kitchen cabinets.

I just bought a 1950's house. The kitchen cabinets are made from solid oak, the doors are all irregular sizes - so it appears that this kitchen was indeed built on site, and the wood appears to be in pretty good condition.
Over the years several coats of poly have been applied, and there is also a nice layer of grease over some sections. I'm trying to refinish the cabinates, so I went out and bought this peel away 7 system, I applied it last night, so I'm hoping to completely strip the cabinets tonight.
Once I have them stripped I'm planning on filling the holes where the hardware once was, with a stainable wood filler, as were going to put new hardware on that is not quite the same size as the original stuff.

Then I'd like to apply a stain to give the cabinets a darker finish. I'd also like to have quite a durable finish, but I'd rather not go for a glossy polyurethane type of finish. Can anyone recommend a stain & finish that would be suitable here?
Thanks,
--Frank

You would choose the stain based upon its color on the wood you are using. Polyurethane comes in flatter finishes than gloss or could be buffed down to whatever you desire. A matter finish looks nice while retaining the soil rejection of polyurethane.

Hope this helps.

Use a semi-gloss or satin poly. Poly has great wear characteristics so I really recommend it - just use one of the less 'glossy' kinds.

Be careful with those "stainable" fillers - they lie! :)

I suggest using a wax type filler that matches the cabinet color after you stain. Use it to fill your holes then put on a couple of coats of poly.

Dave, thanks for the tip on the filler, I'll be sure to follow your advice.

I've got a question relating to the stripper that I've used to remove the polly.
I'm using the peel away 7 system, where you apply a paste, then stick some special paper to the paste. The idea is that the striper removes the paint/polly and it all sticks to the paper. This works... (after a fashion), last night after leaving everything to dry for 24 hours I decided that I would try to remove the paper, when I did this, I used a putty knife to seperate the paper& polly from the wood, this worked quite well. I then decided to sand the wood (to remove any remaining stain/polly), but sanding just seemed to raise a tacky gue from the wood!
I figured that I didn't give the remover enough time to dry, so I left it there and figured that I'd try again tonight.

Is this normal?

how long should I have to wait between using a chemical stripper on the wood and sanding it?

thanks again!
--Frank

I have no idea since I've never used that kind of stripper. Letting it dry more is probably best.

I never used this system either, however, check the directions. Temp and humidity may be playing a factor here. You're going to get a bit of goo with just about all strippers, unless you dip soaking them. Not recommended for at home!

You can try force heating (low temp hair dryer) to wick up the goo, sometimes knowing to pull resins out of oak.

Good Luck, lets hear what you find!

Hi oldbe8 :)

Thank you for your input, but we try not to bump old threads like this. The original poster is long gone, or at least has resolved this long since, I hope! :o. The information is here for others to search for and add a question, but posting an answer to an old question is something we avoid.

You may want to try changing your settings/options so you will see the newer threads.

Thanks again :)