Q: My kitchen cabinets are stained birch plywood. For 30 years I have washed them down with Murphy’s soap and dried them. I recently noticed that the grain on the doors is raised or checked. How do I correct this or repair it?
A: As finishes age and become more brittle, many develop tiny cracks that allow water, and more moisture, to penetrate to the wood. The result can be either checking of the wood itself, or more commonly, and sooner, the cracking of the finish, a condition that feels and looks almost identical. Generally, that’s a good indication that it’s time to refinish. There are shortcuts, of course; you can sand them lightly with 400 grit paper to smooth the roughness, seal them with Zinsser SealCoat, then top off with whatever finish you choose. That might hold off the degradation a bit longer, but the reality is that what follows hard on the heals of what you described is finish delamination. Without getting into a long nosebleed about which finishes can be redisolved and reknitted, I will say that unless you know exactly what the original finish was, there’s no guarantee that you can reverse that condition, short of refinishing.
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