routers and refinishing

Tunawife wants me to refinish our bedroom furniture, which will entail knocking off the outer layer or "ornate" on all drawers and leaving them flat.

My mind says I design a 2D sliding router jig and mount everything beneath it.

My gut says just buy a belt sander and I'll save time not designing even if the result is more awful and brutal.

Thoughts?

How much do you have to remove? 

and then, how sure are you the drawer faces are solid wood and not veneer? 

I'd lean to the router jig mill approach since the results will be much nicer regardless. The time spend making the jig will be small compared to the total project time anyway and unless you're going for a specific not flat look, flat faces will look much better. 

oh also, I was recently at a specialty lumber yard and they had a giant table setup with a router to mill stuff flat exactly as you describe. I bet the table was 10'x20', and the router probably had more HP than some challenge cars. They used it for some of the huge live edge slabs they were selling. 

So what I'm saying is you might be able to find someone who already has the tool setup and ready to go and they might be able to do a few drawer faces super fast and cheap. 

I have to remove probably 3/4", and I believe it's solid. 

I am going to be using the dressers as I go, so I have to do this in the garage drawer by drawer.

I guess I'll start planning on a jig.

3/4" is a lot to route away. It would take YEARS on a belt sander... unless I'm not understanding what you are doing. Are you planning to remove the material from the 'face of the face'? Or maybe just the outer edges of the face board?

What about cutting the faces off and replacing them with something already flat? 

I'm also worried that going down 3/4" you might run into metal fasteners, which probably won't be kind to your router bit. You might be able to check with a strong magnet or even a stud finder that has a metal mode. 

Robbie (Forum Supporter) said:

3/4" is a lot to route away. It would take YEARS on a belt sander... unless I'm not understanding what you are doing. Are you planning to remove the material from the 'face of the face'? Or maybe just the outer edges of the face board?

What about cutting the faces off and replacing them with something already flat? 

I'm also worried that going down 3/4" you might run into metal fasteners, which probably won't be kind to your router bit. You might be able to check with a strong magnet or even a stud finder that has a metal mode. 

There's a lot of ornate trim and decoration in that 3/4". I do not think there are any brads in there, but one drawer will help me find out quick! I thought about cutting them off, but have not gone that far yet.

I also thought about just using the table saw in two passes, but I think the deeper drawers will be too deep.

Even with a good router and sharp bit you will need a DA sander to get the wood finish ready.  Don't buy the cheapest one. It will be noisy and vibrate your hands to numbness 

Mikita is the brand of choice by knowledgeable Craftsmen. 

If you have ornately carved solid boards making up the front face of the drawers, i think you should probably sell it to an antique store and buy new stuff.

My guess, though, is that there are bits and pieces glued on the surface, and you can probably pry most of it off once you find the parting lines.

Streetwiseguy said:

If you have ornately carved solid boards making up the front face of the drawers, i think you should probably sell it to an antique store and buy new stuff.

My guess, though, is that there are bits and pieces glued on the surface, and you can probably pry most of it off once you find the parting lines.

 

that's not a bad plan. This bedroom set was a $40 Craigslist special.

Expanding on the "parting line" thoughts, I wonder whether a little research into furniture refinishing/restoration techniques would help. For example, heat helps with some adhesives (hide glue?), but you'd have to make an educated guess about how this was assembled (and try some experiments). There are likely a lot of other pertinent techniques, but I only know enough to know there's a lot I don't know.

Streetwiseguy said:

If you have ornately carved solid boards making up the front face of the drawers, i think you should probably sell it to an antique store and buy new stuff.

As someone "in the business", unless these drawers are REALLY Special, you aren't going to get much  trying to sell either the drawers, or the entire set to an antique store.    Markups are typically 300% or more.

Of course, I haven't seen them, but if they have any sort of value, you would be much better off selling to the End User through either FB Marketplace, or Etsy. 

"The Bostonian" said:

Streetwiseguy said:

If you have ornately carved solid boards making up the front face of the drawers, i think you should probably sell it to an antique store and buy new stuff.

As someone "in the business", unless these drawers are REALLY Special, you aren't going to get much  trying to sell either the drawers, or the entire set to an antique store.    Markups are typically 300% or more.

Of course, I haven't seen them, but if they have any sort of value, you would be much better off selling to the End User through either FB Marketplace, or Etsy. 

Yeah, I thought about editing that, but the sentiment is the same.

Thank you for the hints, it did turn out that there were parting lines which I could exploit. See attached.

Then scrape off the veneer. 

Maybe if I sharpen the putty knife. 

Looks like a Thomasville set we have had for fifty years. Are you going to reuse the drawer pulls? If not I would buy a set or two. PM me.

"Aim towards your chum, not towards your thumb."

I sent the PM pirate.

Does anyone know an easier way to remove the veneer?

Is that veneer or is it just a solid board that only has finish in the middle where it was exposed? Or am I misunderstanding the situation?

Edit; oh I see it now, nevermind.

Maybe try a heat gun to soften the glue if you have one? IDK.

I tried steaming it with a regular iron tonight. It was a little easier, though frankly I will need some filler for the gouges. What I started with was some veneer with some gouges. Maybe the right answer is to just scuff up the veneer and use filler.

Hopefully this doesn't mean it was special

Can't be too special.  Manufacture's address has a zip code, which weren't introduced until 1963.

If the refinish doesn't involve paint, you might need to find some new veneer for the drawer fronts.  It's going to be difficult to hide areas of filler if you are using a transparent/semi-transparent finish.

Yeah, or even buy some nice 1/8 or 1/4 ply faced with a wood you like and just glue it on top of the veneer/whatever's left? 

What are you doing with the rest of the drawer? If you're not stripping the whole thing, any new finish on the drawer faces is unlikely to match well. Stripping the whole thing may take a long time. 

Therefore, what about covering the drawer faces with some sort of alternative material? For example you could find a cool fabric pattern and a little foam or stuffing and upholster the drawer fronts, which could make for a really cool look. 

You can go loud:

or relatively quiet:

She knows what she wants it to look like, like the bookcase and the bed that I built.

So this morning was wood conditioner and then the gel stain is sitting. Right now it looks like this

Long story, but the veneer stayed on. The filler worked pretty well, but unlike auto filler it was much softer than the wood, so I had to sand most by hand (with the blocks intended for Tunatruck). Yes, I know the top two drawers of each look like smily faces, it was unintenional but hilarious.

Nice!