I started cleaning up my Sequoia today. I pulled the doors off of it so I could clean them up. I used Dawn and water and a scrub brush. I can see that there is already some kind of stain on the wood because some of it comes up when washed. I did try a little oven cleaner on some particularly stubborn spots and it seems to help w/out doing any damage. The top surface is dirtier and/or faded.
I'm curious about what others have done. Should I sand everything down? That could be a lot of work.
Once it's cleaned up, what stains/finishes have others used?
I have need of some repair as well. It looks like the edge of one door was bitten off by a rabid dog. (or a hungry picnicer.
) I wonder if I should just leave it be.
Some of the hinge and door pull screw holes are boogered up. I need to repair them. I did a quick google search and it seems that a popular method is to drill a hole and fit a plug. Then I'd need to stain the plug to match.
For reference hsre is how the cart looked when I started
Here's the left door from the picture above after cleaning with oven cleaner (a fer seconds) on the greasy spots. That seemed to leave it with some dark areas so I think I'll hit it again with some Dawn.
Here's a door that cleaned up pretty well with just Dawn
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