Dining Room Chair Project

Well, folks, it took me 3 full days but I finally finished all 6 of the chairs! We are very pleased with how they turned out.

This was the first time but not the last time that I will use lacquer instead of polyurethane varnish as the finish for woodworking projects.

If you expect lacquer to go on just like varnish, you need to know that there are definite differences. You do use the same kind of paintbrushes with very fine bristles. Ask your hardware store's personnel if you have any questions about this.

I found that lacquer is less forgiving than varnish. For example, our chairs have carvings in the backs of the chairs. Whenever you brush the lacquer on one side of the back, it leaks through to the other side and visa versa. If you don't notice these drips quickly, you won't be able to get the drips off unless you use extreme measures.

As far as I am concerned, it is wonderful that you do not sand the item between each coat of lacquer. That saves a lot of time and work!

Each coating of lacquer requires just a 30 minute drying time.

Lacquer and varnish each provide beautiful depth of color and definition in your wooden furniture, etc. You decide if you want your finish to be matte, semi gloss or high gloss. It just needs to be your personal preference. I always recommend that you use the more glossy (shiny) finishes on items that you might need to clean more often.

So anyway, the chairs are finished. What is next? The tops of the dining room table, coffee table and the 2 end tables. I really made a mistake by following the trend of last year that allowed the sides and legs of wooden furniture to be left in a stained condition but the tops be painted black. Once the black enamel is removed, stain and lacquer will be applied.

I really thought that the removal of the enamel would be very difficult. So far, I have been pleasantly surprised! I poured just a very small amount of nail polish remover, of all things, on the dining room table top. I allowed it to sit there for a few minutes. Eventually, little bubbles began to appear wherever the remover was sitting. After that, we just used a cheap hard plastic paint and varnish scraper to pull off the old enamel. It took less than 30 minutes to peel off the enamel of half of the table! Once all of it is gone, I plan on using my electric sander to get the surface prepared for new stain and lacquer. As always, I will keep you updated on my progress.

VLE-B