Hi Jennifer, Start with paint remover.
Disassemble as much of the unit as is reasonably possible. I don't mean that you open glue joints but many bunk beds come with each head and foot board separable and side rails as individual parts. There are now water soluble paint removers which are generally more friendly, less toxic and flammable. Follow the instructions, generally though if you are working outside one major issue is that the solvent, be it water or something else will tend to evaporate too quickly. If you wrap everything with something like food wrap to keep it in longer and working on the finish you will find it bubbles up better. You may need to repeat the treatment more than once. Buy yourself a couple of good quality paint scrapers. Imagine that! and use them to scrape the finish off. These are usually a couple of inches wide maybe a little more and you just plow the guck away. A damp sponge can help to keep gunk from drying and sticking back down. Keep a bucket of relatively clear water handy and wipe as you go but don't leave standing water on the surface. Some staining may well be left behind and some of it might run pretty deep. There are those who will tell you to sand it all out but this is probably pretty hard wood and you will struggle to do so. You are better off applying and rinsing kitchen bleach once or twice again lots of damp sponging but not standing water. All this water will raise the grain if you have the finish well removed, once the wood is well dry is the time for sanding. You are sanding to smooth the surface in preparing for the new finish rather than grinding off the old one. The less material you end up removing the better. Everyone has their preferred sanding method. I would not recommend using a power sander much. Unless it is a random orbit sander or unless you intend to paint in which case all you need to do is a light sanding and paint over what you already have, the small finishing sanders will leave a small swirl pattern in the wood which will not likely be seen until you begin applying finish. Paint hides this so it doesn't matter but translucent finishes and stains intended to reveal the wood and its grain enhance those sander scratches. This doesn't apply to a belt sander but you won't be able to use one of those for much, maybe the long rails and maybe one or two faces of the legs but a belt sander will be too aggressive anyway. So, sand paper. Always use a block unless the surfaces are irregular like turnings or spindles. anything else and you will soon begin forming little trenches and valleys where your hand is applying uneven pressure or the wood is a little softer. Unless you have to take a lot of wood down for some reason you shouldn't need anything less than 80 grit and preferably garnet paper or even aluminium oxide, something pretty hard. Cheap sand paper in the end is like most cheap things, well, it's cheap and behaves that way. You want some 80 grit and some 120 grit and then some 180 or 200 grit. I tend to go on to maybe 400 grit and when I can get it even 600 grit if I am intending a really shiny gloss finish. You work with the grain as much as you can which usually means in the long direction of each piece and take care to work right into any corners and you begin with the coarse paper and work your way down going over each piece with each quality of paper. Never skip a grade of paper as the finer paper removes the scratches left behind by the heavier paper and if you skip one grade it will take you a very long time to get the larger scratches out. Use a vacuum with a soft brush from time to time to clean away dust from the surface or a tack cloth or you can dip a clean cloth in mineral spirits just to clear away any residual dust and even small particles of grit left behind by the sand paper so you aren't dragging them around on the wood scratching it as you are working. I like to keep a good sharp scraper clean for the purpose of gently scraping either between sanding steps but particularly toward the end of sanding steps. On flat work this is a good way to help keep things really clean and smooth. The sharp scraper if applied carefully removes the very finest of surface grain, anything standing a little proud, often you don't really feel it there but you do feel it when it is gone. Scraping is something I am fairly new to and I am becoming very fond of, I intend to begin collecting a few and improving my knowledge and skills with. I do have a few power sanders and intend to buy a couple more but they are not my preferred device for finishing. They are about as refined as an ax or cleaver when it comes to finish preparation. You will likely get other and some conflicting advice. Like I said, everyone has their preferred methods and I wouldn't say any are exactly wrong. I would say though that in commercial refinishing shops they use baths of finish stripper which they immerse entire pieces in, often including circulating pumps then they scrape and rinse. At one time there were a couple of sheltered workshops which performed these services maybe there are in your area. Might be a clean efficient way of having that done at reasonable cost and provide a service at the same time. Hope this is helpful. Dale Leavens, Cochrane Ontario Canada [EMAIL PROTECTED] Skype DaleLeavens Come and meet Aurora, Nakita and Nanook at our polar bear habitat. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jennifer Jackson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, February 19, 2007 6:49 PM Subject: [BlindHandyMan] fixing up wooden bunk beds > Hey Guys, > > I just picked up a set of bunk beds on Freecycle for my sons, and they > need some work. I need you guys to tell me how to go about this. They > are solid wood, but someone partially painted them in this metallic > turquoise color. > > So do I use a paint stripper of some kind or should I just sand all that > off? I have an electric sander that I think is used for finishing work. > I am a real novice here, what grade of sandpaper should I use? > > After I get it all stripped down, what is next? Little boys are rough on > furniture. > > If the weather holds, I am hoping to get started on this in the driveway > on Friday afternoon. > > Oh, and I mean "guys" in the plural unisex way. I of course want the > women's opinions too. > > > Jennifer > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > > > To listen to the show archives go to link > http://acbradio.org/handyman.html > or > ftp://ftp.acbradio.org/acbradio-archives/handyman/ > > The Pod Cast address for the Blind Handy Man Show is. > http://www.acbradio.org/news/xml/podcast.php?pgm=saturday > > The Pod Cast address for the Cooking In The Dark Show is. > http://www.gcast.com/u/cookingindark/main.xml > > Visit The Blind Handy Man Files Page To Review Contributions From Various > List Members At The Following address: > http://www.jaws-users.com/handyman/ > > Visit the new archives page at the following address > http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ > For a complete list of email commands pertaining to the Blind Handy Man > list just send a blank message to: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > > > > -- > No virus found in this incoming message. > Checked by AVG Free Edition. > Version: 7.1.412 / Virus Database: 268.18.3/693 - Release Date: 19/02/2007 > > To listen to the show archives go to link http://acbradio.org/handyman.html or ftp://ftp.acbradio.org/acbradio-archives/handyman/ The Pod Cast address for the Blind Handy Man Show is. http://www.acbradio.org/news/xml/podcast.php?pgm=saturday The Pod Cast address for the Cooking In The Dark Show is. http://www.gcast.com/u/cookingindark/main.xml Visit The Blind Handy Man Files Page To Review Contributions From Various List Members At The Following address: http://www.jaws-users.com/handyman/ Visit the new archives page at the following address http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ For a complete list of email commands pertaining to the Blind Handy Man list just send a blank message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! 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