Stripping Permalyn

[California Kid]

Has anybody had to strip a Permalyn finish? I  think I need to start over as the stain was cut through on the edges and a couple small spots. Wood  is English Walnut filled with oil based black filler and stained with LMF. Sealed with LMF sealer, and has coats of finish as well. Any ideas?

[smart dog]

Hi Kid,
Before you do any stripping try mixing some stain with your finish and touching up the light spots.  If that doesn't work, lightly sand the edges of the light spots to feather them in with the darker wood.  That might just look like the wood has some varied color.  Did the light spots happen because you were rubbing back the finish?  If so make sure you always use a wood block to back the sand paper and always wet sand (oil or water).

dave

[California Kid]

Dave, was rubbing out between coats and not paying attention and went through. I was using 0000  steel wool dry. worst places are te lock moldings and shell around the tang ( English Fowler), Also where top of comb meets the side of the comb. I should know better by now. Thats the trouble with Permalyn.

[California Kid]

What can you use to get this stuff off? Zip strip?

[smart dog]

Hi Kid,
I wish I could help more but I don't use Permalyn.  However, I believe it is a polymer finish which means that any stripper that would work on urethane might work on Permalyn.  I suspect polymer finishes are hard to remove but I certainly may be wrong.  One other suggestion before stripping would be to try mixing a stain in alcohol to see if it will penetrate the finish to darken the rubbed out wood.  If you do strip the finish and reapply Permalyn, instead of using steel wool, trying wet sanding with 600-1000 grit paper backed by a wood block.  Wet sand the large blank areas of the stock. Then make some small flat sticks (like nail files) and some round ones (like pencils) from good hardwood.  Smooth and finish the sticks.   Then put some rottenstone on a dish and fill another shallow dish with water.  Dip a stick in the water and then in the rottenstone and apply the paste to the wood around the carvings.  Lightly rub the paste adding more water and rottenstone as needed to keep a thick slurry on the wood.  Then dip a tooth brush in clean water and brush off the goo.  It takes time but does the job without risking wearing off the finish and preserves the crisp edges of the carving.

dave

[Dale Halterman]

A few years ago, the creator of Permalyn gave a presentation at Dixon's on its use. One of the things he said was that LMF stains will penetrate Permalyn finish, so you can just apply more stain over the light areas.

I have tried this once or twice with so-so results. In my experience, the appearance has come out muddy, and can obscure grain detail. But if all you want is to darken a few spots, it may work for you. Probably worth a shot. You can always strip the results later if you don't like the way it turns out.

Dale H

[rich pierce]

I've never been able to use steel wool without having this problem.  It's too aggressive.  I always use rottenstone now to dull a finish.

[California Kid]

Looked at it again this morning, its only a couple spots, but they stick out like a sore thumb to me.
Dave P I'll try mixing some stain and finish. I guess the best thing would be to apply it to the areas that need darkening and let it harden.
Dale H tried restaining the spots, doesn't work very well at all.
Rich P , never had much trouble before, I wasn't paying enough attention to what I was doing.

[Mad Monk]

Dave,

I am farily certain that Permalyn is a polyurethane finish.

[California Kid]

Does anybody have a procedure for mixing LMF stain And finish? Proportions? I think that would probably work to solve my problemn, but am unsure how to proceed.

[smart dog]

Hi Kid,
I think you just have to experiment.  If you don't want to try a test piece of wood stained, finished and rubbed out, then maybe find a spot beneath the butt plate that you can try the stain as a test.  I don't think anyone can determine your proportions without experimentation.  I will say this.  I have fixed rubbed out spots exactly as you describe by staining them through the finish.  I found that I needed to make the stain much darker than I wanted for it to work because not much actually gets through the finish.  In addition, you really don't want to try and darken the wood with multiple coats of thinner stain because as you add coats of the stain mixed with permalyn you are going to make it harder for successive coats of stain to penetrate to the wood. 

dave

[California Kid]

Dave, I tried to stain the spots with just stain yesterday.It works somewhat, but gets splocthy, that why I thought I'd try putting the stain in some finish,  but use it only where it needs darkening, then try to put a thin top coat, without stain in it, over the whole stock, hoping it will blend in. Trying to put just the stain through the finish seems to make it worse. What do you think?

[Nate McKenzie]

Kid,  Formby's  furniture refinisher will do the removal if you go that way. Available in many hardware stores.

[smart dog]

Hi Kid,
Give it a try.  You don't have anything to lose if you were contemplating stripping off the finish anyway.  The only problem with mixing stain and the finish is that it may blot out the grain of the wood (like paint) but for small spots it may work great.

dave

[John Vaccaro]

Repairing this can be done. The biggest probelm is a darker color at the edges of the remaining finish. The solution is to use a Q tip to carefully stain only the area that has been cut through. Less stain is better than more, a little lighter spot will look like wear. I'm afraid adding satin to the finish will cause the same probelm, a darker color around the repair.
Any strip-er should work, but a careful repair is possible.
Good Luck John

[California Kid]

Ended up stripping my stock today. Used Klean-strip, worked very well. Not as much trouble as I thought it would be. Easier than struggling with trying to match a spot. Never had to do one before.