Bench / Projects / Walnut Armoire: Stripping Two Doors Without Opening Every Joint in the Case
Walnut Armoire: Stripping Two Doors Without Opening Every Joint in the Case
The doors were a mess and the case was fine, which is the ideal version of this job. Stripping flat doors on a bench is easy work. Stripping them while they are still hung on a case that must not get wet is a different problem, and that is what this record is mostly about.
Before
After
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Piece | Two-door walnut armoire, fielded panel doors |
| Estimated date | 1880-1905 |
| Substrate | Solid timber |
| Old finish removal | Solvent (DCM-free) |
| New finish system | Shellac / French polish |
| Coats | 4 |
| Dry between coats | 4 h |
| Bench hours | 22 h |
| Materials cost | CNY 420-560 |
The decision that saves the case: take the doors off
Every instinct says leave them hung, because a door on its hinges is already supported and you do not have to find somewhere to put it. That instinct is wrong for four reasons.
Stripper that runs down a hung door runs onto the case and down the legs, and it does not respect the line where the door ends. You cannot lay a hung door flat, so the stripper stays in contact unevenly and dries out at the top while it is still working at the bottom. You cannot get a scraper flat against a vertical surface with the same control. And most importantly, a hung door puts the whole load of your work through the hinges, which are usually the oldest and weakest part of the piece.
The doors came off in four minutes with a correctly sized screwdriver. The hinges went into a labelled bag with their screws, because hinges that have been together for 120 years have worn into each other and swapping them from side to side leaves the doors sitting crooked.
What stripping the case would have cost
The case sides on this armoire are veneered in figured walnut, 0.7 mm thick. The doors are solid walnut. That difference decided the whole plan.
Stripping the case would have meant stripper running down the veneered sides, and any stripper that sits long enough to work on a 19th-century finish is also long enough to get under a 19th-century glue line. Lifting the veneer on the sides would have turned a two-weekend job into a three-month one.
So the case was cleaned, not stripped: alcohol on a rag to remove surface grime and the waxy residue of a century of polish, then a light 000 bronze wool pass with the grain, and that was all. The difference between the newly stripped doors and the cleaned case sides is visible if you put your face 300 mm from the piece and look for it, and invisible from where anyone actually stands.
Bench note: On any piece mixing veneered and solid surfaces, decide the treatment per surface. A uniform plan applied to a non-uniform piece is how restorations go wrong.
Take the doors off and label everything
Four minutes with the right screwdriver, two labelled bags — left and right, hinges and screws separately. Then the lock plates: on this piece they were brass, lacquered, and stripper would have taken the lacquer off in seconds and left them dull in a way that polishing cannot put back. Masking tape around them, renewed after every pass.
While the doors were off, the case was checked for movement. Both top corners had a slight rock, which is normal on a case that has been standing on an uneven floor for a century.
Strip flat, on trestles, one face at a time
Doors on trestles at 900 mm, one face up. Stripper brushed one way, cling film over, 30 minutes, scraped at 30 degrees. Then the same on the other face. Then the mouldings around the fielded panels, which need a profile scraper and a stiff nylon brush rather than a flat blade.
Three passes on the doors. Between passes, wipe the whole surface with alcohol on a rag to neutralise whatever stripper is left, because stripper residue and shellac do not coexist — the finish will stay tacky for a week and then go cloudy.
Repair the panel edges and the two split stiles
The fielded panels had chipped edges in four places where the doors had been kicked over the years. Walnut offcuts cut to match the grain direction, glued with hide glue, planed and scraped flush after curing.
One stile had a 180 mm split along the grain from the top hinge screw. Same treatment as a loose joint: work hide glue into the split, clamp across it with a padded caul, leave 12 hours, then cross-pin with a 6 mm walnut dowel through the stile, glued and cut flush. The pin goes where it will be covered by the hinge plate, so it is invisible with the door hung.
Sand sparingly and only to flatten
The doors were planed and scraped properly, so the sanding was minimal: 150 on the flat stiles, 180 and 220 over everything, and the fielded panels by hand on a cork block only. Power sanding a fielded panel rounds the bevel over in about three seconds and the bevel is the whole point of the panel.
Alcohol wipe, then a light 320 pass to knock back the raised grain that the alcohol lifted.
Build the shellac in tinted coats, checking against the case
This is the part that makes or breaks the job. Blonde shellac alone would have come out too pale against the case; garnet shellac alone too red. The mix that matched was roughly 2 parts blonde to 1 part garnet, tested on an offcut and held against the case side in daylight before a drop went on the doors.
Four coats, brushed, 4 hours apart, each one thin. The first coat was thinned 1 to 1 with alcohol to seal, the next three at full strength. A light 320 or grey pad between coats, and a tack cloth.
Wax, rehang, and adjust the hinges
Beeswax and carnauba, 3 to 1, in turpentine, brushed thin and buffed. Then the hinges went back on their original sides, the lock plates got a coat of wax and a buff with a soft cloth, and the doors were checked for swing.
One door needed a 1 mm shim behind the top hinge plate to sit straight, cut from a business card. On a 120-year-old case that is not a defect, it is the piece telling you what floor it was built for.
One armoire, one workshop. Take doors off their hinges; a hinged door under stripper is both a handling hazard and a finish hazard. Information only.
Abrasive ladder
Grit sequence, coarsest first — each step removes the scratches of the one before.