This project might be better suited for my aquarium blog, but it involved a lot of woodworking and finishing so I thought I would just post it here as well.
I started restoring the stand by using a
mouse sander with 80 grit paper ($15) to try and remove the old paint. I knew that it would be a lot of sanding
because I wanted to get down to the bare wood so that it would look suitable
for a stain. Sanding was effective
however, way too time consuming.
Transitioning to a finer grit and
continuing to sand for several more hours would’ve produced acceptable results,
but I’m impatient so I looked into paint stripping chemicals to aid in the
initial removal of paint. This doesn’t
eliminate the need for sanding but it should greatly reduce the amount of time
(and sandpaper) wasted! I purchased
Kleen strip paint stripper for about $9 from Home Depot and proceeded to strip
the rest of the black paint off of the stand.
This stuff is serious! It strips
straight through paint that is several years old on brittle wood (in some
areas) that would’ve otherwise taken me hours to sand off with a sander:
Transitioning to a finer grit and
continuing to sand for several more hours would’ve produced acceptable results,
but I’m impatient so I looked into paint stripping chemicals to aid in the
initial removal of paint. This doesn’t
eliminate the need for sanding but it should greatly reduce the amount of time
(and sandpaper) wasted! I purchased
Kleen strip paint stripper for about $9 from Home Depot and proceeded to strip
the rest of the black paint off of the stand.
This stuff is serious! It strips
straight through paint that is several years old on brittle wood (in some
areas) that would’ve otherwise taken me hours to sand off with a sander:
Now with the majority of
the paint stripped, I was able to sand the residual off very quickly with a
heavy grit sand paper.
To further prep for finishing, I sanded
the stand by hand with a finer grit (120) paper with the machine sander and
then finished it off by hand with 220 grit in the sand direction of the
grain. I then purchased a Red Oak stain
($8) from Home Depot and applied it with a brush. I allowed it to soak in for about 5 minutes
and then wiped it with clean rags. I let
it dry overnight and then applied a coat of spar urethane for protection. After that I painted the inside of the stand
with 3 coats of white latex paint that I had left over from another project. After that I cut a piece of vinyl siding for
the water resistant base.
Here are some before, during and after photos:
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