Refinishing the cabinet from hell...
 

:mad:The saga of the roach-infested machine continues (see 'It's all your fault').

I want to refinish the original cabinet, so last week i gathered all the required tools and assorted fluids necessary. Applied a coat of stripper, scraped it off, applied another coat of stripper, scraped it off, and on and on.

After a couple of days, it started to look better, but not the way I wanted. We went to the paint store and bought another can of stripper, this time stronger than the first one. Same exercise, apply, scrape, repeat. The problem was the front panel which has trim on it. Everytime i scraped it, the stripper seemed to gum up and congeal, making it almost impossible to get off. It looked worse the more we did it. Using a tough plastic scrubbie didn't work; neither did a wire brush.

So, it was back to the paint store this morning to get the industrial strength stripper. We were convinced that the previous owners had put something on that panel; what it was, we didn't know.

We had to use it outdoors, so we transferred everything outside and soaked the thing with stripper. When we began scraping it off, my DH flipped it to get better leverage. He looked at the underside and said 'I know why we can't scrape it clean...it's PLASTIC! Argh!

Talk about feeling stupid! After we finished laughing at ourselves, he removed the fake panel and we will replace it with wood.

I had no idea they did this, it looked real!

Thanks for my giggle of the day.

Fake panel made of plastic ............ oh no! It will be better when you're finished.


Joe

I went back and had to read the original thread. I am still giggling. I hope this machine knows how much it is loved. Can you please post a picture when she/he is all done.

I picked up a Singer machine in a Singer "Venice Desk" the other day and the drawer fronts and the front rail are "Master crafted of molded high-impact polystyrene."

good to know I'm in the 'right club'!!!!! LOL

It's just that we felt so STOOPID when we discovered our goof. Kept scraping off all this gooey, sticky mess and wondering why we couldn't get a clean surface.

Well, this machine will have quite a history when we get done. I'll have to write all this up and attach it to the table!

Will keep everyone posted!

Oh thank you for the great laugh today. I'm right there with you!

Glad you found the problem! And good to know I'm not the only one who does goofy stuff. We bought a cabinet and tried stripped what I thought was embossed metal (like they used in ceilings long ago). HA! Turned out it was EMBOSSED CARDBOARD! You'll love it once it's done, but your idea of a write up is good thinking! Hope the rest of this goes better for you!

That's a OMG moment!