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Cornwall I Restoration


SY860

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Hi everyone! I'm a new member and I just acquired a pair of 1979 Cornwall I's I intend on restoring. The back bottom corners are missing a fair amount of wood, and the top of one of them has ring marks. They were originally raw birch (the label says C-BR) but at some point they were finished with tung oil I believe; they have a walnut appearance now and do not appear to have been re-veneered.

 

With that being said, How feasible would it be to sand the cabinets to get them back down to raw birch? I restored a pair of raw birch 1980 Heresy I's earlier with extensive water damage and surface scuffs using 400 grit sandpaper, but I wasn't trying to sand away a stain or oil finish. Are there products that could strip a finish?

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On 11/18/2024 at 7:10 PM, SY860 said:

  How feasible would it be to sand the cabinets to get them back down to raw birch?  Are there products that could strip a finish?

The Cornwall plywood has an outer birch ply   - 50-50 mineral sprits with steel wool super fine 0000 can remove some of the dark stain , apply with the grain of the wood  , once you can no longer remove any stain with the steel wool , clean the surface with a wet cloth with dish soap ,  let it dry for a few days ,  sand with 600 grit   .

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 11/21/2024 at 7:07 PM, OO1 said:

The Cornwall plywood has an outer birch ply   - 50-50 mineral sprits with steel wool super fine 0000 can remove some of the dark stain , apply with the grain of the wood  , once you can no longer remove any stain with the steel wool , clean the surface with a wet cloth with dish soap ,  let it dry for a few days ,  sand with 600 grit   .

Between when I first posted and now, I learned mineral spirits and turpentine are tung oil solvents. I did not know about cleaning the surface with dish soap, but it makes enough sense to me.

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