We just refinished our 1950's Bilt Well Vintage cabinets and they turned out really well. First I stripped the Shellac, then we sanded them down. We did two coats of stain (with a more red tone vs. the yellow tone they were originally) and followed up with three coats of polyurethane.

Here is a link that might be useful: 1950's Vintage Cabinets Catalog Picture

Thanks for your reply, Acadiafun! I have no idea what's on the cabinets -- how do you know what it is so that you can figure out how to remove it?! I've never tried to remove anything but ordinary paint from wood. :p

My husband was sure it was shellac. We used Citristrip Gel Safer Paint and Varnish remover. It will remove Shelllac or Polyurethane. You paint or roll it on your cabinets, let if dry (can take 1/2 hour to hours) then you can take a five in one paint tool and scrape the finish off. You go from top to bottom or side by side and the finish just crumbles off, sometimes in sheets. It smells good and it is not very harsh to work with.

I was recommended Denatured alcohol as this removes Shellac but IMHO it didn't work well to actually remove the bulk of the Shellac without being a huge mess. It was fine to use it (with steel wool) for the little bits of Shellac that remained in hard to get places.

Sanding was not too bad once the finish was removed.

BTW- Alcohol will dissolve Shellac- so it is any easy way to test if the finish is Shellac.

I will try to snap some pics of the cabinets now that they are done.

Thanks so much, Acadia! I'm off to search for Citristrip!

Looks like birch to me.

Here is a pic of when I started to scrape off the Stripper.

Sorry for three replies, but I can only post one pic at a time. Here is the Bilt well logo- in which the PO has upside down. I think on purpose, as I hear he had a sense of humor. I am leaving it like this. I bought an original 1950 Bilt Well Catalog of Ebay and these cabinets with logo are on the cover. I will snap some good pics of the catalog and put these on canvas for some artwork in the kitchen. I am thinking small 8x8 framed pics or 12x12's.

I also used the stripper and steel wool to take off old shellac and 50 years of grease off the original hardware. They look like new.

Thanks for posting the pics, Acadiafun -- your cabinets look great, and I really like the upside-down logo!!! :O) Did you strip with everything in place, or remove the doors to work with them level? My friend's cabinet handles were mostly black with what seemed like years of oil/grease build-up so I tried cleaning some with steel wool and found a nice brass underneath. :)

kompy, when I look on-line for images of birch grain I don't find what looks like these cabinets to me, but you may be right. Thanks for the reply!

Hi party- We stripped with everything in place, then we removed the doors for sanding, staining and polyurethane. I cleaned the hardware when it was off the cabinets.

The project took about a week. What stain color are you thinking of using? We used Pecan on ours. I like that you found brass hardware under the age and grime. I have read that you can rub a little olive oil onto the brass after cleaning to keep it from tarnishing, or carefully coat it with lacquer. Never done it though.

Good luck with your project!