Hey guys. I've been bored around the house, and decided to undertake a project: Refinishing our kitchen table and chairs. I had initially planned to just refinish the stained portions of the table and chairs, but the black is chipped and worn off in several places. So, I've refinished the stained portions, and now I want to refinish the black parts of them both. That said, I like the way it currently looks. The parts are black, with a semi-gloss type shine, where I can see the wood grain a little. It has distressed parts, but I'm not too worried about that. I do, however, still want to be able to see the wood grain like I can currently. Does anyone have some methods on how I can determine which type of finish it is? I've gone to a couple paint stores, but that hasn't produced much (the guys at the paint store said this, and then this, maybe this, hard to tell, no way to test it, etc). I don't really need it to be the same finish, but I do want it to look the same. I do have a HVLP, so I have options. This is the reason I decided to refinish it. That, and we didn't like the color, but it was free so not going to complain. Good image to see the black. Anyone have some ideas for me? Also, just to mention, this is my first experience doing this type of stuff, so I don't really know what I'm doing.
Looks like a black stain with clear-coat of some sort. If the wood is in fact stained with black stain - it'll be next to impossible to remove completely. Stain soaks into the wood grain. But putting that aside, the first step is going to be removing the clear coat. Sanding it off is a LOT of work so using some sort of finish stripper would be preferable. If you've never used one - i'd suggest going back to a specialty paint / finish place and getting some tips and instructions on using a finish stripper. You'll basically use the stripper to remove the clear coat and any surface stain. You'll probably need some things like a toothbrush / regular brush to get all the crevices coated and a lot of rags and some steel wool to help remove the stripper/finish gunk. Plenty of ventilation and a place to store the used rags will be needed too. After the finish is stripped, you can do some light sanding if you want to knock down any rough spots. Go back over the parts with a dark stain and if you want a low-shine protective finish, try a satin polyurethane. Hope that helps.
