Advice on taking apart wooden chair that is stapled

morrow95 said:

Bought some aircraft remover tonight from the local auto store. This was in an aerosol can. Sprayed it on a few pieces from the above picture and absolutely nothing happened - nothing came off at all.

The only thing that seems to work is using the Kleen Strip in multiple applications with the wire brush.

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I have tried to put a commercial paint and varnish remover in a paint sprayer and even though the remover was very good it did very little spraying it. I haven't tried any remover in an aerosol can before. It may be it just dried out before it could work like the commercial remover I tried. You might hold the can closer to the wood so it goes on wetter and see if that helps. The Kleen Strip remover is a good stripper for a lot of things. You might try using a power washer to rinse the parts off after it has soaked for 30 minutes. It would either have to be a power washer that was low pressure or one that you could adjust the pressure down to about 1500 psi. Pressure that low you can almost tolerate spraying your hand with the water. Sometimes the finish will be softened enough the pressure washer will lift it off where hand rinsing with solvents will do nothing. I think most of retail removers say to rinse with mineral spirits which is completely wrong but it keeps them safer from being sued. A better solvent would be lacquer thinner. It's a much stronger solvent and you really need to wear chemical gloves handling it.

I recently refinished a kitchen that a painter started with a lacquer finish. I knew the Kleen Strip didn't work well on lacquer so I bought Strypeeze remover for the job. In a eight hour day I stripped the exterior of all the cabinets, doors and drawer fronts and rinsed them off with lacquer thinner as I went. That brand remover works better for lacquer but doesn't rinse with the power washer very well. It's better rinsed with lacquer thinner. You just have to use different products and methods for each different job.

To me it looks like it might be birch or maple. If it is then it does need the wood conditioner. If it isn't the wood conditioner wouldn't hurt anything so I would use it to be sure. Once you use the conditioner you will probably have purchase a darker color stain than you think. The conditioner will make it stain lighter because it will seal the wood a little. You could suppliment the color with a dye however as busy as the chair is it would be best to spray the dye. I don't think you would be able to apply the dye evenly by hand. You should not put multiple coats of an oil stain on. If you manage to get some of the stain left on the surface it can interfere with the adhesion of the topcoat. The type of topcoat would depend on what color the stain will be and if you have the means of spraying or not. If it is a medium color and can't spray I would use an oil based wipe on polyurethane. If the color is light I would go with a water based polyurethane. If you have the means of spraying I would seal with a vinyl sealer and topcoat with a pre-catalyzed lacquer. It would work on light or dark woods.

The wood really looks like maple to me up close. The grey areas are just the grain of the wood. What you can do to test the finish is there are area where the seat will cover on the inside side of the rails. You can do your testing there. You are correct in that it's not good to test a small area and then try to continue later.

Much of the wipe on polyurethane is oil based. Since you are going light be sure to use a water based wipe on poly. It will be harder to work but the oil based will yellow as it ages. If the stain you use doesn't even out the color for you, you can use dyes to suppliment the color. I expect wood like the bottom picture will be much lighter then the wood in the top picture. Don't use multiple coats of an oil stain and if you use an oil stain let it dry three days before applying a water based topcoat.

The english chestnut stain is dark enough you could use an oil based poly if you wish. It doesn't yellow very much and is really only a issue on light colored woods like natural maple. You don't see it on medium to dark colored woods.

To answer your question, you can use an oil based conditioner and topcoat it with a water based poly but you should let the conditioner and stain dry three days to a week before topcoating. The finish doesn't adhere very well to fresh linseed oil but is fine once it dries. If you didn't want to wait you could put a coat of zinsser sealcoat shellac on after you have it stained and when it dries procede with the water based poly. The sealcoat would work as a barrier coat. It would adhere to the fresh stain and the water based poly would adhere to the sealcoat.