A botched refinish is a botched refinish. You can't polish a turd now matter how hard you rub -- it just won't shine. I recommend strip and refinish. Late Victors like yours had lacquer finishes sprayed over a base coat of oil stain. The order would be: oil stain for primary color, subsequent coats of tinted lacquer to build up 'shadowed' effect around edges, top coats of clear lacquer to protect. There are also intermediate steps of 'knocking-down' the sprayed finishes with OOOO steel wool, and even the raised grain of the stripped cabinet. Before initial applications of the oil stain you may wish to use a sanding sealer and a paste filler in these early stages. Sanding sealer ensures that the stain will 'take' evenly with no blotching, paste filler makes the surface absolutely flat with no grain 'dips'. Make sure the stripped cabinet has no residue of the stripper anywhere -- wipe it down thoroughly several times with lacquer thinner and allow to dry thoroughly 24 hours before applying the paste filler/sanding sealer/oil base finish. Make sure the stripped cabinet has no silicone-spray contamination (this is important during all steps of the refinishing). Any droplets of silicone will cause the finish to 'fish-eye'. Use a HVLP sprayer if possible to apply the lacquer coats. With a proper application, and proper subsequent care, a good lacquer finish shouldn't need any oils applied to it for many, many years. John M
>From: "Lee Cloninger" <[email protected]> >Reply-To: Antique Phonograph List <[email protected]> >To: <[email protected]> >Subject: [Phono-L] Finish Help Without Re-Finishing? >Date: Fri, 09 Jul 2004 09:56:19 -0400 > > > Hello All, > In February I got my first and only phonograph, a Victor VV 4-40. >The cabinet is in fairly good shape, considering, but someone, at some >point, did a really bad job of covering it with a coat of clear finish. It >has dull blotches in it and in at least one place there are actually dried >dribbles of finish. > The guy I bought it from is also a phono collector, and he >recommended rubbing down once a month or so with Old English Scratch Cover >furniture polish. He said after about six months that would bring back out >a lot of the colour and texture of the wood grain. And it did, but as the >wood started to look better, the dull blotches in the clear finish started >to stand out more and look worse. > I'd read good things on-line about Howard's Restore-A-Finish and >Feed-N-Wax, so I tried these. At first, it didn't seem to do have done >anything. After a while it seemed it made the finish look worse by >uncovering a lot of little blemishes that time and the Old English had been >working to conceal, and it did nothing for the dull blotches. > I do not want to refinish the cabinet, but I'd like to get what's >there to look as good as possible. Should I try repeating the >Restore-A-Finish? Once? Repeatedly, with "moisturising" periods in >between? Apply with fine steel wool? Try another product? > I'll be grateful for any input. Thanks! > Lee Cloninger > Durham, North Carolina > > >_______________________________________________ >Phono-l mailing list >[email protected] >http://mail.oldcrank.com/mailman/listinfo/phono-l_oldcrank.com
