Stripping furniture

Try citirstrip a safe non toxic remover

I use Citristrip.

Been there, done that, and the long hard work pays off. Treasures are usually hidden under pounds of varnish.

I'm sorry for your labor but, unfortunately, when there are so many coats of varnish, it takes a lot of elbow grease to get down to the natural wood.

quicker would be to have it "dip stripped" that is to be dunked in a vat of stripper solution, until bare wood is exposed. then its taken out of the bath and given a shower to remove the traces of stripper. hand dried after. this is the education i get for hanging out at a furniture repair shop....

If the finish is not all coming off, perhaps it is sealed with lacquer and not varnish, beings you say it is quite old. If your table is indeed finished with lacquer, you will need to use denatured alcohol to remove it. You shouldn't have to apply and scrape more than 2 times if it was actually sealed with varnish. Good luck, I just finished doing one and I also sanded it to get all the flecks of old finish off it.

Give Kutzit a try. You have to order it online, as they don't carry it in the stores anymore. That's the only product I use on all varnished, shellac, and painted furniture.

thank you so much!!

It does take lots of time and elbow grease but everything I have done has turned out beautiful. Make sure you put your stripper on & leave it for a few minutes, then I carefully scrape with a putty knife being careful not to gouge it.

This stuff works..... https://www.homedepot.com/p/Klean-Strip-1-gal-KS-3-Premium-Stripper-GKS3/100144685 I hate Citristrip, tried this twice ... it sucks, and I've been stripping and doing antique furniture for 50 years.