03-10-2016, 05:30 PM
This may be too late to help you but I solved a BIG stain problem on a Z chairiside I have years ago. I miixed whiting compound (what was used years ago when people mixed their own paint) with water to a paste consistency and applied it to the stained area. I let it dry 24 hours and then tenderly scraped and wiped off the powder with a cloth. Much improved. Repeated that 4 times. The last time it did not improve so I stopped. After refinishing the cabinet you CANNOT tell where the stain was. (There were 2 large areas of stain.) Cheap and easy fix. Have before and after pictures if you want them.
Its not bad for a first attempt at cabinet recovery and its much better than it was. I used locally available products - wood filler of a similar tone to fill the damaged bits and nail holes, shellac as a sanding sealer, then oxalic acid to remove the stain (as much as possible) - yes, I know... wrong way around. I had already sealed it thinking I'd leave the stains then found some cheap Oxalic acid so tried it over the shellac thinking I could strip it all if needed but it cut straight through and did a reasonable job... once cleaned and dried I applied black Kiwi shoe polish to the rounded edges (on advice that it was a similar composition to furniture wax - so far so good) and buffed that off, leaving them slightly darker - the shellac or what was left of it presumably stopped it from intruding too deep into the timber. Then a thinned black oil paint on a small brush to re-blacken the inside edges of the fretwork... this is the bit I'm least happy with and would take any advice on the best way to do it. Once that was done I applied a red mahogany stain to the entire cabinet and 0000 steel wooled the cabinet to flatten it again once that had dried. I finished the cabinet in a dark oak Briwax and buffed it out once done with a clean dry rag.
My burn in test time on the bench was short lived... I suspect the curve of the tuning assembly caused the copper at the end of the LED strip to short to the chassis... Scratch one test LED setup, and open all the doors and windows for a couple of hours... It still stinks in the workshop!
I might need to incorporate a dimmer function! The LED strip is now stuck to an intermediate thick insulating layer of high speed tape (not sure what else it might be known as - we used it in the air force on the leading edge of things like Iroquois rotor blades to protect them from impact). Heres a comparison.