veneer blanket box refinishing advice, Please

[Lockdownnew]

I am a beginner looking to refinish this veneered blanket box, I tried to clean it up with a solution of water/vinegar/detergent with light sponge and the damaged areas of varnish? have come off completely and some are now tacky How do I take off the varnish, paint stripper or just sand it off? im afraid to damage the veneer it seems pretty thick but i don't want to go to hard on it.

I have some monocel clear water based varnish to refinish it with as I want a more natural colour to the wood not the yellow/orange of old varnish.

The box also has a mothball smell that i cant get rid of.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated as this is my first time with veneer refinishing.IMG_2911.JPGimage2 (2).jpegimage0.jpeg

[Xanthorrhoeas]

As you suspected, sanding should be avoided with veneered furniture. The best way to approach this would be to use one of the safer gel-type paint strippers to remove all the old varnish. Follow the instructions on the container to clean the surface thoroughly after you remove the stripper.

Even the clear water-based finishes can discolour with age, but I agree, they should be slower to do so.

The Napthalene smell is probably with you for life, I'm afraid. The chemical has a strong smell even in the minutes quantities. You could try washing the interior surfaces with metho, but I don't know if that would work. Naptha is quite a waxy substance so might be more amenable to white spirits - but it has its own smell. I used to be able to buy a dry cleaning spirit called Murlex which had little or no smell - see if you can find that anywhere.

Good luck

David

[Skew ChiDAMN!!]

If you already have a bottle of metho at hand, try wiping it down with that first.

Should you notice 'colour' coming off onto a clean rag, then that should be all you need. Well... metho, elbow grease and a lot of applications.

[Lockdownnew]

Thanks for the advice on the gel paint stripper David

[Lockdownnew]

ohh thanks I do have some metho, I might give it a try on the under side and see how well that works before I get the stripper.