How To Strip and Refinish Wooden Furniture

This procedure is very simple to follow and will give your wooden furniture a natural-looking protective waxed finish.

You will need:

Method

1. Strip the existing finish clean using paint stripper and coarse wire wool and follow the instructions on the tin. You may need to repeat this step until you have a clean surface.
   
   
   
   
2. If the furniture is not an antique, start sanding the surface with 120 grit sandpaper, always with the grain. Using a block to hold the paper will make this process easier and more effective. When you are happy that it is sanded evenly, move up to a 180 grit, again sanding with the grain.
   
   
3. You may need to neutralise the surface at this point, look at the instructions on the side of the paint stripper tin. We neutralise the stripper in our workshop with methylated spirits (denatured alcohol) with 5% acetic acid in the solution. This does two things: It helps to neutralise the alkali in the stripper to give a neutral surface and it allows you to see the true colour of the wood and any imperfections you may not have noticed. We use a disposable foam-back kitchen scrubber to apply the solution. No need to be fussy, just wash it over and you will see the true colour of the table. Do all of this in a well ventilated space, it will evaporate very quickly. If you are happy with the finish and you can see no obvious imperfections that will bother you then proceed to the next step. At this point give it one more quick pass with the 180 grit paper just to ensure you have a very clean surface. And leave it to breathe overnight.
   
   
   
   
4. Apply a natural oil finish and again follow the instructions on the tin. Use some of our polishing cloth to apply it, it is very easy to do and needs no special skills. Just wipe it over the surface evenly, it will dry very quickly. You may want to coat it again but that will be up to you. 
   
   
   
   
5. Leave it overnight to dry thoroughly and then apply our Gilboys Gold to the surface using the soft wire wool supplied in the polishing kit. Charge the wool with a little of the wax and apply a thin even layer in the direction of the grain. The surface will go very dull as it starts to dry and will be completely dull once applied.
   
   
   
   
6. Leave it for 20 minutes or so and then start buffing. Follow the grain and start in one corner and work your way across the table. 
   
   
   
   

Results

You should be left with a beautiful natural satin sheen (not glossy) which will look very pleasing to the eye and have the added extra protection of the oil underneath.

There shouldn’t be any need to wax it again but if you should wish to, I would advise waiting for a few days just to allow the first application to go hard. You don’t want to apply it too quickly after the initial coat of wax as it may soften it and remove all your work. How often you use the furniture will determine how often you need to re-wax it. I would suggest in normal use, once a year. You should be able to gauge this for yourself by just looking at how much wear it is getting. Wax polish is sacrificial coating. It is there to enhance, protect and wear away with use.

About the Author: Simon Gilboy

Simon's career began in furniture restoration in 1987.  Leaving school at 16 and signing on as an apprentice French Polisher at Staverton joinery, he has accumulated over 30 years experience in the restoration of fine and antique furniture.
In 1994 Simon opened the doors on the first Gilboy’s workshop at the Riverside in Staverton with financial and mentoring help from The Prince’s Trust.
In 2015 after years of searching for a beeswax furniture polish that would befit the fine furniture Gilboys were restoring, Simon developed his own beeswax polish using only the very best of responsibly-sourced ingredients.
Simon says, "My intention was not to compete with anyone on price, but to simply make the best beeswax polish it was possible to make"

You can usually find Simon in the Gilboys workshops filming instructional how-to videos for the Gilboys YouTube channel, on help forums, or actively finding new ways to preserve the past for the future.

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