Furniture, Wood and Cabinetry Finishing - Quickest way to strip dinner table chairs?

I have a set of 4 kitchen table chairs that have turned legs and rails, with arm rests and such, ie, a PAIN to strip, and finish sand. I'm lucky enough to work in a cabinet shop with spray equipment and a spray hood.

Anyhow, has anyone tried sandblasting to remove the paint? Right now they have an enamel finish, whatever kind of enamel the paint folks told my mother to use 10 years ago.

Thanks,

matt

I haven't tried sandblasting wood - I think the problem would be that it will not only eat the paint off, but the wood as well.

Are you intending to re-paint, or stain/varnish? If paint, you don't need to remove all the old paint, just what's loose, and sand to feather the edges. Use a sealing primer, then add your new paint.

If stain/varnish, then stripping is probably the answer. You can cold-strip, using chemicals from the hardware store. A stripping shop could do the same, or they could hot-strip the chairs by dipping them - it takes the finish off, but often removes/softens the glue holding them together. (A stripping shop once turned a six-panel door I gave them into a six-panel door kit - it had to be re-assembled and re-glued - not fun.)

Lol, Bob, I've had the same experience with dip-stripping (I'm a cabinet maker). Our painter stained an applied panel the wrong color once (it was close but no cigar). Was topcoated with conversion varnish (ie, it ain't coming off). We sent it to a friend that does dip stripping. It came back, as you said, in a kit. He warned us, we fixed it. That's why I'm not dipping them.


They will be stained to match the table I stripped and stained a year ago. They are maple chairs and would look great if only I had the time to chemical strip them. I guess I gotta bite the bullet.