In the near future I'm going to be stripping some heavily-carved dark
oak (Victorian) furniture - something I haven't done before. I'm
expecting to use a chemical stripper of some form and a toothbrush,
followed-up with oxalic acid, but it would be useful to hear what
strippers, or other techniques, people have used ... ?

On 01/02/2021 22:48, wrote:
In the near future I'm going to be stripping some heavily-carved dark
oak (Victorian) furniture - something I haven't done before. I'm
expecting to use a chemical stripper of some form and a toothbrush,
followed-up with oxalic acid, but it would be useful to hear what
strippers, or other techniques, people have used ... ?

at that period the predominant varnish was in cfact shellac a k a French
polish. You can get that off with ethyl alcohol.

you may come across various varnishes based on cellulose nitrate/acetate
- MEK/acetone will dissolve those.

I've been restoring a bit of early 20th century dark oak using model
aircraft dope and a spirit based dark stain, mixed.


--
"Nature does not give up the winter because people dislike the cold."

ۥ Confucius