A beautiful coffee table can make a wonderfully elegant centerpiece for any room. Coffee tables come in all shapes and sizes and are made from many materials. However, for wooden coffee tables, there inevitably comes a time when a thorough restoration is required and all the paint or varnish needs to be carefully removed.
Perhaps a treasured family heirloom needs to be restored to its former glory, or perhaps a second-hand bargain needs some tender loving care. Whatever the reason, there are a few factors to consider before work begins.
Before anyone embarks on a coffee table restoration they would be wise to ensure they are not working on an extremely valuable piece of furniture. If you are lucky enough to inherit or stumble upon a genuine Victorian coffee table, it could be worth a great deal of money. Original designs by E.W. Godwin, the Victorian master craftsman credited with popularizing the coffee table in Europe, are worth a fortune and should only be restored by highly skilled professionals.
When you start stripping any type of coffee table, such as a rattan coffee table set, of paint or varnish, it is best done by hand and without chemicals. However, if hand sanding is impracticable, chemical renovators will almost certainly have to be used, and these fall into two broad categories: caustic and enzymatic.
Caustic strippers use a blend of solvents such as dichloromethane to erode paint and varnish and disrupt the physical bond the finish has with the underlying wood. These products can be quite harsh and could damage the wood. They should be used with great care and always in strict accordance with the manufacturer’s instructions.
If you want a gentler method of stripping your coffee table you should probably consider enzymatic strippers. These products use the rather gentler action of enzymes to remove old paint and varnish from wooden surfaces. Originally developed to remove graffiti from the walls of buildings, their action is not as powerful or as quick as their caustic counterparts. However, their gentle action is popular with professional restorers and they are now freely available to the public.
So however you decide to remove the paint and varnish from your mission coffee table, please make sure you take the time to produce a finish you can be truly proud of.
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