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The air was dirtier than I thought, and I got a lot of debris in the finish. So I stripped it and started over. Nothing was “ruined” or damaged.
I say this often. I’ve written it many times. Maybe I get the insight from the many years I’ve spent refinishing furniture. No matter how good or how careful you are, stuff still happens, and you have to strip off what you’ve done and start over. Every professional or semi-professional refinisher knows this because they’ve had to do it.
But woodworkers making new projects usually don’t do that much finishing, and many fret unnecessarily about avoiding mistakes. A great many woodworkers I’ve talked to or corresponded with have expressed a fear of “ruining” their woodwork, the actual word they usually use.
But you can’t ruin wood or joints or glue by stripping and starting over. You just have to add a little time to the total you’ve spent making the project.
Actually, I have one partial exception to add to this. If you are staining the wood and get it the wrong color, or decide you would rather have the wood unstained, you are in for a bit of work. Stripping won’t remove all the color, so you may have to sand to get more of the color out of the wood.
But you still haven’t “ruined” anything.
— Bob Flexner
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