Re: Feedback wanted on woodgrain refinishing (archive)

Since my woodwork has no clearcoat left on it to speak of I was planning on using stripper that I buy at KMART that I've used for furniture stripping/refinishing. If the wood still has a topcoat/clearcoat on it I would suggest roughing up with sand paper to break the finish and then use stripper. Thomas is correct that that chemical stripping may loosen the wood over time. The wood is veneered on a metal strip similar to
the way veneered furniture is to wood. You have to be careful and not leave the chemical on the wood too long and if you use a solvent or water to wash the stripper off to dry it right away. The reason venners come loose from their base material is that they stay wet too long in the stripping process. I don't know what BMW used to glue the wood to the metal base plates so I would take extreme caution in using a chemical stripper and try to sand as much of the top coat off as possible and use the chemcial stripper to remove the stain if you want to remove the stain.

Mark Dorr
735i/88/98K

What do you use to chemically strip the factory clear coating?

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