Removing veneer? (1 Viewer)

[Andy Hardin]

I've got a nice pair of speaker cabinets (2 front and a sub) that I am going to refinish and use for my secondary bedroom HT. The speakers sound great, but have a hideous fake wood grain veneer on them. My plan was to remove the veneer, sand, prime, apply a lacquer gloss black finish, and then a gloss outer finish.

As I toyed with them last night I found the veneer to me a *nightmare* to take off. So my question is what is the best way to get this veneer off. Simply scraping? Solvent? Solvent then scraping? Or can I simply treat the veneer as part of the wood, apply a few coats of heavy sanding sealer over it, then sand, putty, etc, before a few more coats of sanding sealer before my paint coat?

Painting issues aside (I've been following the other thread on the piano finish, this is not my goal, just a nice, even, gloss black finish), what is the best way for me to go about this without spending an entire weekend to get the old stuff off?

Thanks!

 

[RobertSchaez]

Hi Andy,

I'm afraid that getting the old vinyl veneer off is a messy job. If you have a heat gun, try working a putty knife under it, starting from an edge, and carefully peel it off. Then you will have to clean up the adhesive residue. Try a liquid stripper. The problem is that once you're done, the surface will most likely be bare MDF, not the most attractive surface if painted.

Good luck,

Rob

 

[Justin Bowser]

If it is a wood veneer, and is not lifting or otherwise damaged, then you should be able to seal and paint over top of it. If it is the vinyl crap then Robert's suggestion for a heat gun (or good hair dryer) should cause the adhesive to soften up and allow you to peel it off. For cleanup? Dunno off hand but a rag dampened with lacquer thinner might do it .
Another thing you might be able to do is to re-cover the cabinet with some sort of plastic laminate like Wilsonart or Formica. I just re-did our kitchen countertops with a black speckled (looks kinda like granite) textured laminate that looks kinda nice. When we were picking this out I remember they had a semi-gloss black also. You can also get wood veneers (some that are peel-and-stick) in various species from places like www.rockler.com.

 

[Jeffrey_S]

Andy,

If the existing veneer is solid and not lifting off at all, why not just build on top of it. On the baffle this might create a problem but not on the rest of the cabinet. Where it does add to the thickness of the baffle, just add more closed cell gasket material to compensate when mounting the drivers. If things get too complicated, just build some new MDF cabinets using the same dimensions.

Jeff