Refinishing Cabinets And Millwork

Question:

I have a question with touching up some blemishes in my kitchen cabinets. My kitchen cabinets are 15 years old. They are oak cabinets that are finished with a golden oak stain and a clear coat. Frequent use has worn the the clear coat off the corner of one door (where people grab it to open it). How do I refinish this and get it to match the surrounding cabinets? (I am very confident I can accurately match the color, but it is the clear coat that scares me!)

I have a similar situation with my door jams, stair railing and molding. These have several dings and scratches that go all the way down to the bare wood. The stain and wood on these pieces is different from my kitchen. Can I spot repair these or do I have to completely refinish each piece? How do accurately match the stain and finish? The original clear coat looks like glass. Can I get it to look that good?

Lastly, I am replacing some bedroom doors. I need to accurately match the stain and clear coat with the door jams and molding. I will be replacing 12 doors. I am think that while I am at it, I will replace a majority of the molding in the house. How do you suggest I tackle this?

Brad H.

Reply:

It's almost certain that the "clear coat" on your cabinets and millwork is just plain old urethane. I have not had much luck with touching up spots of urethane, because you can usually see the boundaries of the new spot.

My approach is to just do a quick light sanding of the old finish and apply a new coat. You don't normally need to remove all the old finish, just "feather" it so there are no stark transitions. Only light sanding is desired here, because if you sand too much you will begin to remove some of the stain. I always apply at least 2 coats of urethane, 3 or 4 coats on high-traffic areas. A light sanding is necessary to scuff-up the urethane before re-coating. I can't say that the results will look absolutely perfect, but they won't look scratched up either. Just try a small section.

The only issue with urethane is sheen (shininess or gloss level). Most cabinet manufacturers use a satin sheen, but you can buy semi-gloss and gloss. That glass look you mention sounds like high-gloss urethane.

Matching stain color is something else. Unless you know the exact brand of stain used originally, all you can do is try some samples on a piece of wood of the same species. If your wood is oak, it's probably red oak, which is widely available.

Personally, I don't always try to make stained wood match. In the case of your doors, if you can't get some samples to match closely, I would consider trying some complimentary stain color.

But... I would bet money that your millwork is either "golden oak" or non-stained oak. This country is awash in those two colors of millwork. There are many manufacturers of stain and finding the exact color may require shopping around to find a few different brands of Golden Oak or Honey Oak stain.

Usually you can re-stain light-colored woods to a darker stain color. You can do a lot of experimenting, that's all I do.

If you want to re-stain any woodwork, you will need to completely remove the old urethane. Sanding may work. Chemical strippers work okay but require washing and drying and this takes a bit of time. The stripping is best done outdoors in warmer weather. I recently did a few test pieces on our 95-year-old oak trim. The stripper took the stain out completely. I've got a whole house full of trim to strip, re-stain, and urethane. I can't wait until spring!

I have made custom-blended stains by mixing carefully measured quantities of various Minwax stains. With their Red Oak stain (which is really red) and their Jacobean stain (which is almost black) I have made some interesting shades that made clear pine trim look the same color as the red-stained red oak in our old house project. But keeping track of the color proportions is critical, or else you won't be able to reproduce the stain again. For small test batches I used eye-droppers with a calibrated scale. I've got a bunch from the industrial-strength cartons of Rogaine that I use! Ask some bald guys if they have any spare Rogaine eyedroppers, maybe they can save some up for you.

Bruce W. Maki, Editor.