Designing Kitchens and Bathrooms - How to get the "Orange" tint out of my Kitchen Cabinets?

Hi all,

our place has 1965 period kitchen cabinets. not sure what kind of wood. alder maybe? maple?

anyway, we like them enough, but would like to get what appears to an orange tint from the lacquer off of them and use clear lacquer instead.

i bought some Jasco stripper and put it on an inconspicuous area. left it there for 1/2 hour. tried it twice. NOTHING! looks exactly the same.

so, the question is what the heck is this stuff? the backside of the wood has no varnish or lacquer and looks nice. the front of the cabinets are really orange.

what should we do?

here are links to pics of the cabinets:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2129/1796976212_b2cf6896de_b.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2189/1796132193_b33b423207_b.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2047/1796972070_cfb341cade_b.jpg

thanks,
Robby

Can't quite tell you the type of wood. It may even be birch - quite common for cabinets in the 60's. Did the stipper lift any of the finish? From your picture, it appears that the stripped area is lighter than the rest of the wood. Maybe not as much as you had hoped? The wood has darkened and yellowed with age. Short of some extreme sanding, nothing much you can do. Have you considered painting the cabinets? For all the work you'll do to strip the varnish, you could do a nice paint job to a color of your choice.

Hi Rich,

thanks for your response. i should clarify, the pics are from 3 different kitchens - the building is a triplex. the pic you see with bare wood used to have tile on it. it now has matching granite where the bare wood was. i included it so you could see the bare wood.

I'll check again tonight (although i did wipe the stripper off). after leaving the jasco on for one hour, it did NOTHING.

I'd rather not paint, i like the grain of the cabinets and i guess I'd rather have orange wood than painted wood. if the wood stays orange, can i just do a light sanding and put a coat of clear lacquer on the cabinets?

the problem is some of the lacquer is worn in some spots and i like to make the cabinets look more fresh.

thanks,
Robby

Can't quite tell you the type of wood. It may even be birch - quite common for cabinets in the 60's. Did the stipper lift any of the finish? From your picture, it appears that the stripped area is lighter than the rest of the wood. Maybe not as much as you had hoped? The wood has darkened and yellowed with age. Short of some extreme sanding, nothing much you can do. Have you considered painting the cabinets? For all the work you'll do to strip the varnish, you could do a nice paint job to a color of your choice.

Are you sure you used the right type of stripper? A paint and varnish remover should bubble up the finish which is then scraped off. Once the finish is removed you then neutralize the stripper and sand the wood prior to refinishing.

Another option would be to apply a tinted varnish/poly to recolor the wood. You can change the tone of the wood to darker but can't make it lighter using this method. It must be applied evenly to prevent dark/light areas in the wood!!

It is also possible that the current finish is shellac which can usually be disolved with denatured alchol.

thanks for your thoughts Mark!

I'll check tonight. my wife bought it on the hardware store clerk's recommendation. i think it said jasco paint/varnish stripper.

no bubbling happened. would shellac not bubble?

I'll try alcohol tonight and see what happens.

Regards,
Robby

Are you sure you used the right type of stripper? A paint and varnish remover should bubble up the finish which is then scraped off. Once the finish is removed you then neutralize the stripper and sand the wood prior to refinishing.

Another option would be to apply a tinted varnish/poly to recolor the wood. You can change the tone of the wood to darker but can't make it lighter using this method. It must be applied evenly to prevent dark/light areas in the wood!!

It is also possible that the current finish is shellac which can usually be disolved with denatured alchol.

im doing mine right now. my cabinets are from 1956 same look as yours . i have just used a orbital sander with 150 paper to remove all of the finish . i have taken it down to the bare wood and have stained them with classic oak stain and two layer of polyurethene, they came out awsome. the wood was birch. i have installed two more cabinets made out of birch plywood that i built myself and stained the same way and you cant tell the diffrence. my advice would be to try to use a pwer sander and some 150 grit paper and give it a try. i removed all of my cabinets and did this in the garage because its alot of dust.did all of the work out side of the kitchen and just rehunge them in the reverse order that i removed them.