Thread: removing old contact glue from kauri pine tabletop

Originally Posted by piperjono

I am restoring an old kitchen table that some feebleminded person had laminated.I now have the laminate off ...but does anyone know a solvent for possibly 59 yo contact glue still on the wood.
The top is kauri pine . What finish would one put on this beautiful colonial piece top ?
Thanks
Piperjono

White spirits will soften/dissolve contact adhesive, enough to scrape it off. It's a gooey, messy job though.

Yep, what Steve said. Lots of old newspaper, lots of white spirits, scraper, probably lots of sanding afterwards.

Just about any of the paint thinner/cleaner type solvents will do - after all, they would have been in any original paint/shellac finish on the table before it was desecrated. If you already have a few give them a quick test on a corner - you want something that softened the goo quickly and does not evaporate too quickly its self - be wary of 'experts' at the local big box store who try to sell you some sort of paint stripper, which may or may not work, and may affect the finish you want to put on after cleaning the table top.

And definitely do the job in a well ventilated area, out doors on a day with a breeze would be best - you may still get a solvent hangover but hopefully won't destroy your kidneys or liver.

The simple answer is that once you have the contact cement glues etc cleaned up, shellac and bees wax to finish off is perfect for an antique table, irrespective of the timber. See below some photos from my rather lengthy restoration projects thread, of a large cedar chest I have restored. It was completely stripped to bare wood when I bought it. I am happy with result achieved. It is not hard to do, there is plenty of advice both here on the forum, let alone in Neils Ubeaut site, online etc.

One further comment I would add re the use of paint strippers, so long as once you have cleaned the surface of the muck you need to get rid of, so long as you neutralise the surface, with eg oxalic acid or even a mix of warm water, soap/metho etc, and it is allowed to dry thereafter, if you give the top a light sand (240-400 grade), there is no logical reason you will have problems with any sort of finish of choice. That is my experience and I have been doing this sort of thing for 20 + years now.

Have fun.

Up here at 53N (and -31C out the door this AM), large bundles of timber are commonly strapped with hard metal bands. If you can salvage some of that "strapping," 5-6cm pieces make fantastic scrapers. One sort is about 18mm wide, the other is maybe 32mm wide.

I put pieces in a machinist's vise and file one long edge square for sharper scraping edges. No, they are not Veritas. I am ahead of that game.

Originally Posted by piperjono

I am restoring an old kitchen table that some feebleminded person had laminated.I now have the laminate off ...but does anyone know a solvent for possibly 59 yo contact glue still on the wood.
The top is kauri pine . What finish would one put on this beautiful colonial piece top ?
Thanks
Piperjono

As has already been said, shellac and wax (though I would recommend a wax with a high carnuba content as being less sticky and dust attracting). I have an old Kauri table that, when we got it, was painted bright orange over a previous coat of white enamel. We used a heat gun to soften and scrape the paint off and found that the original shellac finish still existed under the table. In fact the shellac melted and made the paint easier to scrape off (thank heavens for lazy people not stripping off the shellac before they painted it). The table had originally been given a thin staining with some dark colour. I used a French polishing rubber and brown button shellac to put another few coats of shellac on it as the scraping had removed a lot of the original shellac. I have attached a photo of what it looks like many years after the clean-up process. UBeaut has some ready made shellac finishes that would do as well or better than my old-fashioned mix.
IMG_0759.JPG