I'm in the process of refinishing a desk that my parents bought in the late
'30s or early '40s. It's (African) Mahogany with a very, very dark red
finish that was popular back then. While I've finally managed to have
reasonable success with a burn-in stick to fill some gouges and assorted
other defects, I found that it necessary to strip the finish off a smallish
section of one drawer front. I've mixed up some stain that's close enough,
as determined by applying it to the sanded back of some drawer fronts to
recreate the color, but the area I wanted to re-stain wasn't taking
anything, not stain, not colored shellac, and not even a powdered dye.

SO ... I decided to strip to entire finish from the drawer front. After
failing to get anything off with Alcohol, Turpentine, Mineral Spirits,
Lacquer Remover, and Xylene, I tried a last resort: Acetone. That works
perfectly and the wood is getting close to bare and I can, if I want to,
re-stain it.

BUT ... before I re-stain, I think I'd rather try to duplicate the original
finish, which leads me to the question: what finishing method in use in the
late '30s or early '40s on mahogany would have a solvent that was
exclusively Acetone?

TIA
Norm

Norm Dresner wrote:
I'm in the process of refinishing a desk that my parents bought in the late
'30s or early '40s. It's (African) Mahogany with a very, very dark red
finish that was popular back then. While I've finally managed to have
reasonable success with a burn-in stick to fill some gouges and assorted
other defects, I found that it necessary to strip the finish off a smallish
section of one drawer front. I've mixed up some stain that's close enough,
as determined by applying it to the sanded back of some drawer fronts to
recreate the color, but the area I wanted to re-stain wasn't taking
anything, not stain, not colored shellac, and not even a powdered dye.

SO ... I decided to strip to entire finish from the drawer front. After
failing to get anything off with Alcohol, Turpentine, Mineral Spirits,
Lacquer Remover, and Xylene, I tried a last resort: Acetone. That works
perfectly and the wood is getting close to bare and I can, if I want to,
re-stain it.

BUT ... before I re-stain, I think I'd rather try to duplicate the original
finish, which leads me to the question: what finishing method in use in the
late '30s or early '40s on mahogany would have a solvent that was
exclusively Acetone?

TIA
Norm


My guess would be nitrocellulose lacquer. It came into existence after
World War I and consists of a resin dissolved in a fast-drying solvent
which is a mixture of naphtha, xylene, toluene, and ketones, including
acetone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lacquer

http://books.google.com/books?id=rCi...ab98WL3xfKtCc4

--
Jack Novak
Buffalo, NY - USA