Re-staining & finishing oak dresser - what finish is it now?

The most typical clean up materials are water or mineral spirits. Id tend to guess that its an oil based finish so test out some mineral spirits on the dresser, that should remove the finish for you. The other way that i would go is using card scrapers to scrape the finish off or you can use acetone just like the wife.

Id go with card scraper personally so it wont interfere with any new finish you’re going to use.

-- "there aren’t many hand tools as awe-inspiring as the #8 jointer. I mean, it just reeks of cast iron heft and hubris" - Smitty

Water? Really? I considered acetone, but wasn’t sure if it would remove stain and finish or just finish. Also not sure if acetone would have any undesirable effects when it comes to applying the new stain & finish.

If it were me trying to match the finish of the bed, I’d strip the dresser down to bare wood and re-stain and finish identical to the bed. Quickest way to strip finish is a heat gun and scraper. OR, chemical strippers work as well, but personally I’d only use water based stuff (aquastrip). The new water based stuff has come along way and works quite well (albeit a little messy).. I don’t see the need to use the caustic stuff anymore. Plus the smell of the “traditional strippers” is terrible. My same thought goes towards acetone; acetone will soften ANY finish, but it evaporates very quickly and has a very strong smell.

When the finished is removed, then time to break out the sandpaper :-) No way around it, re-finishing involves a lot of sanding!

Beautiful job on the bed BTW :-)

-- Andy Miller, Boatworkstoday.com; Twitter:@BoatworksToday