Just working on finishing two restorations started, than abandoned, by volunteers several years ago.

Exterior painting completed today. Will zap Hume Abatron pictures soon.

One of the cars has a varnished wood interior, which has fallen partly on hard times. the previous crew had done some refinishing and much more disassembly, leaving a large jigsaw puzzle, but that's another story.

Anyhow, the spec is for a quick and dirty in-place clean and shine. The previous guys were using a product called Carver Tripp Danish Oil, which comes with a pigment and is pretty much applied like a gel stain, wiped around, repeating as necessary.

It worked pretty well on some parts, not at all on others.

The local hardware sold me Old English Scratch Cover, dark wood flavor. It seems to work pretty well, goes on like a polish and leaves a shiny tint over damaged wood, but still not really as good as I would like.

Anybody who has had better success with one-step treatments and is willing to share, please do - there's got to be some better stuff out there.

dave

Wood refinishing has few shortcuts in my experience. A lot of quick and dirty touch up systems do not last longer than furniture polish and require a new application relatively frequently.

Real shellac based systems or real varnish were used by many of the railroads but both have drawbacks. I tend to use several coats of oil based polyurethane 'varnishes', rubbing down between coats, and resulting in a high gloss finish that stands up to temperature variations and age.

Another of our guys used a tung oil finish, MANY coats. It is an oil that will polymerize over time as it dries to leave a somewhat permanent top coat. I believe his brand was a blended product with some urethane and drying agents in the mix. Still, very watery, requiring many coats and definitely not a shortcut.

Refinishing old wood is still quicker than applying a finish to new wood. After the old finish has been stripped and cleaned the original wood pore structure and grain is generally sealed and filled already, requiring fewer top coats to get the desired result.

Bob Kutella

Agreed on all counts, but no time or $ for the nice real refinishing job I would like to do. The goal is to have the car useable for the next few years, not to do the useable for the next few decades thing. These guys are great to work with, very reasonable and appreciative, and I'd love to be able to do a first class job for them, but it isn't in the cards right now. It's great to work where the frustrations are few and come from the hardware rather than the people.

I wonder if the antique furniture industry has some professional secrets?

dave

The interior of our 1882 passenger car (This is the small narrow gauge combine we had at railfair in Sacramento in 1999.) was finished in “tinted shellac”, basic white or orange shellac with color added. It is a decent interior finish that you can mix yourself. (shellac flakes plus alcohol, plus dry color, or substitute pre-mixed shellac for the flakes and alcohol) It took lots of coats. The resulting finish is a bit muddy rather than clear. We did wax over the shellac to complete the finish with a basic paste floor wax. That may be the secret for your project.