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Refinishing Stained Oak Cabinets
Question
Forum Responses
From the original questioner: Thank you for the insight. To make sure that I understand, I need to clean and then scuff sand, and then tint versus staining? I am not that familiar with tinting. Is it something that an average person can learn rather quickly? What about waterborne tints? From contributor T: An even easier solution may be to mix dye into your finish and just spray once or twice with no toning. The reason I tone separately is to have more control and to be able to isolate light parts and bring everything to the same shade. The problem of getting color in the recesses of profiles still exists with tinting the finish, but if your customer doesn't need the color to be much darker, I think you may be able to get away with just coloring the topcoat. There are transtint dyes for waterborne, but that's not my department, yet, in fact, I'm very interested to know if I could do what I did on this job with waterborne. From the original questioner: I am going to try waterborne on this project on the back of the cabinets first. I will let you know how it goes. So if I scuff sand, then the finish should burn in and change the color? Do I need to test the existing topcoat first? Thanks again. From contributor W: Take 'em back down to the wood. Don't strip them - just take a DA, some 80 grit, and go to town. Be a lot easier than stripping and a lot less mess, unless you've got a dunk tank. You can also match the color of new color and tone over. Hopefully the cabinet takes the new color well. From contributor J: If it was veneer, would you still sand to bare wood (color gone)? If you are doing this successfully, what are your grit steps? I always wonder how much it was sanded by the previous finisher? From contributor W: If it's veneer, I think you only have two options. 1) Put the doors and drawers, and if possible face frames, in a dunk tank (for stripping), use a square palm sander due to corners, and 120 grit, and sand. Hopefully the golden oak stain hasn't burned into the wood so severely that when you apply the new color, it won't take. 2) Tone. Toning is pretty much 1 shot only - very difficult to do, but it can be done. Remember to cut your new color back if you're going to tone. Very important, because 9 times out of 10, if you don't cut back, it will come out too dark. Tinting is not toning. Veneer sucks. From contributor O: I always strip them down to bare wood and then refinish properly. We refinish about 60 kitchens per year and they are all done that way. Adding toner to the lacquer, in my opinion, should be done for a shading effect only. You will not get the same results as stripping down completely. Of course, this depends greatly on what the client is willing to pay. We charge a minimum of $150.00 per opening, which means a 30 door and 10 drawer kitchen would cost $6000.00. There are many finishers in my area that charge approximately $2000 to refinish the same kitchen, but when I explain to the client the process we use, they always prefer our work. The others just shade over the existing finish. Would you like to add information to this article? Interested in writing or submitting an article? Have a question about this article? Have you reviewed the related Knowledge Base areas below? 
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