Dresser and Nightstand-Stain and Finish

This past week, I got these two pieces out of the attic, sanded them and made a few repairs. Now it’s time for stain and finish.

After sanding, I got rid of most of the dust with a brush and the air compressor. But to get the best finish you can, you need to remove as much as possible.

A quick wipe down with a rag soaked in VM&P naphtha took care of the rest of the dust. Mineral spirits evaporates more slowly, and probably would have worked a little better, but I didn’t have any.

For stain, I picked Mohawk dark red mahogany wiping stain. Application is simple. Spray the stain on, and rub in with a rag or sponge. After a few minutes, wipe the excess with a clean rag. The stain dries quickly, so I worked in sections.

After staining, I applied a coat of shellac to the outside of the dresser cabinet and to the drawers and nightstand.

Shellac is a fine finish in its own right. It makes a perfect finish for kids, as it’s non-toxic. It can be sprayed or brushed, and since the solvent is alcohol, it dries fast. Shellac can be polished to a high sheen, and works great finishing turned parts while still on the lathe.

Shellac is not the most durable finish, so it’s not ideal for furniture that will see heavy use. But one place it shines is as a sealer coat. Especially for refinishing projects.

Since it’s alcohol based, the solvent won’t draw oily contaminants out of the wood. Some of these contaminants can cause problems with topcoats like lacquer. So a coat of shellac will seal them in, leading to better results with the final topcoat.

When we stripped the furniture years ago, we only stripped the drawer fronts, so the shellac coat freshened up the inside of the drawers as well.

Speaking of lacquer…

I sprayed the dresser cabinet, the drawer fronts and the night stand with at least 5 coats of lacquer. The top of the dresser and nightstand got 2 additional coats.

Lacquer can be difficult. It may need to be thinned, so you can spray it. You may need to mix different thinners, depending on the weather. There are more problems you have to troubleshoot during application, than with varnish or polyurethane. A respirator is a must when spraying, and even then, your finishing area has to be well ventilated.

I was half way through before I realized today’s mistake. When I was spraying the cabinet, I kept noticing the dresser top had a rough surface after each coat, Nothing else had the same problem. Not the sides, not the drawers, not the nightstand.

I realized after 3 or 4 coats, the problem wasn’t in my mixture or technique, but in my order of operations. I was spraying the top of the dresser first, and then the sides and front of the cabinet. By the time I moved down from the top, the lacquer had dried enough that the overspray from the sides and front was just falling on the top and not flowing out to a smooth surface.

I changed to spraying the top last for the rest of the coats, and the problem was solved.

The things that make lacquer so finicky are side effects to what makes it such a good finish. The fast drying time almost requires you to spray it, but allows you to apply several coats in one day. Spraying your finish has its own problems, like orange peel, overspray, and runs, but it also means you don’t have to worry about brush strokes. It’s an evaporative curing finish, meaning that each coat partially dissolves the previous coat, and the solvents used can result in problems like blushing. This also means that the final top coat is one solid film, giving the finish a deep look others can’t match(it also means no sanding between coats). It also gives you options for sanding and rubbing your finish, even up to a completely flat (surface, not sheen) finish

For a project like this, there’s way more pros than cons.

I’ve got a little more work before I can call this one done.

If you can’t tell from the pictures, I used gloss lacquer. Holy moly it’s shiny. The plan is to let the finish cure for a few days. Then, rub everything with 0000 steel wool and cut the sheen back to somewhere between satin and semi-gloss.

I also have to figure out what to do for hardware. So far my attempts to salvage the old brass pulls have been met with difficulty. I’ve got to make something work because this thing is coming in the house next weekend.