Now that I had all of the paint off the cabinet, it was time to think about the hardware. I had bought some CitrusStrip a few years ago, but didn’t end up using it for whatever reason. I’ve tried strippers in the past and found them horrible smelling, hard to use and you ended up scraping so much you might as well have sanded in the first place. For handles I could put in a bucket, I thought this might just be worth a try.
I was pretty generous with the stripper, made sure everything was covered enough. Within an hour or so the paint had started to bubble and come off. I left them soaking overnight for good measure and cleaned them off the next day.
You can see how well used the handles are by the fact that they used to have a copper coating on them, but it has almost all worn down to stainless steel. I rather like the look, real patina ;0).
There were a couple of 1/4 thick strips I pulled off prior to peeling the paint. They ended up in the trash can, but then on second thought I decided to try and strip them with CitrusStrip just so I would know whether or not I had wasted my time scraping, or if I should have used it all along. So I pulled them out of the trash and gave it a shot.
At first it seemed to be working just fine, the paint bubbles and peeled right off….but that was just the first layer, things turned into the usual mess when I tried to reapply for the subsequent layers of paint. Peace of mind restored :0). I had made the right decision first time around.
There was one little surprise though hiding under all that paint. We now know who made the cabinet! More on that in a later post!
The cabinet still needs a little work, some of the drawers need a little TLC. I think it’s going to be a “show case” work bench. It’s almost a shame it’s destined to the shop.
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Girl with a Hand Plane 
5 thoughts on “Display Case Restoration”