My Battle with Veneer

 

I recently told you here what to do when you face the problem of bleed-through when painting your furniture.  This week, we're going to tackle another problem.  I frequently come across some great old furniture pieces with good character and bones but the veneer is often broken, loose, buckling, etc.  Like this beautiful little vintage table I found.  It has great legs and carved details and everything about it was in absolutely perfect shape - except the veneer on the top. 

 

 

 

I first hoped I could just glue the veneer back down where it was lifting up.  But it was put on in a pattern and those small pieces were already trying to buckle up.  I knew if I painted over it the veneer would eventually finishing buckling and the pieces would come loose. 

 

So, I decided the veneer had to be removed.  That's when the new trouble began! The veneer on one end of the table was so dry and brittle that it pulled right off.  As usual, there were two veneer layers - the thin top layer and a thicker layer on top of the solid wood table top.   The veneer on the other half was stubborn!  I almost forgot to take a photo of it, but here it is when I was almost finished.  Not a pretty sight!  If you look closely you can see the two veneer layers.

 

 

 

The veneer on the second half of the table was really hard to remove.  I'll admit that I had to just leave it alone for awhile while I figured out what to do (and get up enough nerve to tackle it)! I first tried out my new heat gun.  I was careful to get close enough to hopefully loosen the glue but not so close to damage or burn the wood.  Fail! This may work on some pieces but not too well on this one.

 

 I had read that the glue on older veneers is water based so I tried a couple of other methods. First, I got out the iron I had bought at a thrift store just for removing veneer.  Note:  DO NOT use your household iron.  It will be ruined immediately by the glue.  I wet an old washcloth and placed it on the veneer then pressed the hot iron down on it for a few seconds.  Some people use a metal paint scraper, but I had luck with a flexible, thin blade filet knife.  BE CAREFUL!  The veneer came off in mostly small pieces but at least it was coming off smoothly when it did.  This method worked for awhile until I hit some real stubborn areas.  The two layers of veneer would not budge!  So, I then sanded with my palm sander to open up the finish some to allow the moisture to penetrate through the veneer down to the glue.  Next, I took a spray bottle of water and wet the veneer down well.  After waiting a few seconds, I placed the washcloth on top and again applied heat with the iron before using the knife to remove the veneer. 

 

 

Again, the pieces of veneer didn't come off in large pieces but with time and a little patience, I managed to get all of the veneer off.  Lots of areas were left with small amounts of glue so I used my electric palm sander to remove them and get the surface as smooth as possible.  See those dark areas in the wood?  Especially since I knew I was going to paint the table white, they concerned me.  And so did any remnants of glue residue I may have missed.

 

 

So what did I do?  Just like I did with the table with stain bleed-through, I sprayed the surface with my trusty Zinsser Bulls Eye Spray Shellac to seal it all in.  When that dried, I applied a coat of CeCe Caldwell's Paint in Virginia Chestnut.  Since I was going to distress the table, I wanted the surface to be fairly close to the original finish.

 

After the Virginia Chestnut had dried, I applied another coat of spray shellac.  Why?  When I distressed the white paint, I didn't want the distressing to go all the way down to the original lighter colored wood.  By spraying the shellac over  the Virginia Chestnut, the distressing left the Virginia Chestnut as the original wood color and did not remove it.

 

I then painted on two coats of CeCe Caldwell's Vintage White, allowing to dry between coats.  After the second coat had dried, I distressed with a damp washcloth. On surfaces that are likely to receive a lot of wear and tear and maybe even drinks, etc. being placed on them, I like to use CeCe Caldwell's Satin Finish. I applied a coat of Satin Finish diluted with water, allowed it to dry before lightly sanding with fine grit sandpaper and repeated with another coat of diluted Satin Finish before again lightly sanding.  Next I used the brown paper bag method.  Believe it or not, you can take a regular brown paper bag (I used a lunch bag) and "sand" the surface.  You will not believe how smooth the surface becomes!  I like a waxed finish so I applied a coat of clear wax over the Satin Finish on the tabletop and after it had dried finished by buffing it to a sheen. 

And another beautiful old, vintage table is saved from the discard pile with a little determination and patience and some basic household items! Do I like removing veneer?  Of course not!  Will I do it again?  Absolutely!  Because there are so many old, beautiful pieces out there with damaged veneer.  Just look past the damage to what it can become.