How To Polish Wooden Furniture At Home?

Well-kept wooden furniture adds value to the beauty and aesthetics of your bedroom. To keep it maintained, regular polishing is essential. But, no matter how beautiful and shiny the furniture is, it will lose its shine with time due to dust and repetitive cleaning. In reality, no wooden furniture has its own shine and glow, instead, it shines due to the polish applied to it. It's better to polish the furniture after every 1 or 2 years to keep its longevity and beauty intact. Unfortunately, we only get to see shiny furniture when it's newly bought. To maintain its shine, regular polishing is a hefty and expensive task that nobody wants to do at home. Most people would just leave it to the professionals. In this article, you would learn how to make a homemade polish for wooden furniture (used by carpenters) and step by step guide on how to polish wooden furniture at home?

A Bad Idea

Some people normally polish their wooden furniture at home with the help of a mixture of vinegar and vegetable or olive oil. It’s a very ill-informed method. Because it’s a very temporary solution. Vinegar has the ability to remove the polish applied already and the oil can temporarily make it look nice and shiny. But after some time, the dust and stains will be absorbed in the oil and the furniture will be as greasy as anything. For instance, you want to polish your shoes, and instead of using appropriate shoe polish, you polish it with vegetable oil. It might look shiny in the beginning. But once you have used it for some time, it will absorb all the dust and rust from the surroundings and make it as ugly as possible.

How to make furniture polish at home

To polish the wooden furniture of your bedroom, you need a 0.5 Liter thinner, 250 grams Gum copal, and a one-meter piece of Muslin cloth. The total cost of this equipment is around 200 PKR which is extremely cheap. You can buy gum copal and thinner from any furniture store or hardware store nearby.

1- Thinner

2- Gum copal (white industrial Wood polish)

3- A Piece of Muslin (very thin cotton cloth)

Follow the steps below to make the wooden furniture polish (used by the carpenters) at home.

Step1- Crush the Gum copal into a powder form.

Step 2- Mix the gum copal powder with the thinner using any bottle.

Step 3- Keep shaking it for small intervals and then leave the mixture for 10 hours to dissolve properly.

Step 4- Cut a small piece of Muslin cloth and fold it twice or thrice and use it to filter the mixture. Better filtration will help in enhancing the quality and shine of the polish.

Step 5- The residual particles are left on the cloth while the polish is collected by the filtration of the mixture in another bottle.

Step 6- Use the polish

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to polish the wooden furniture at home.

Step 1: Clean the Furniture

The first step is to clean the furniture properly. For this purpose, you can use a dry microfiber cloth to do the dusting all over the wooden piece of furniture. Remember, don’t dip the cloth in water and try to mop the wood with the damped piece of cloth. Water and wood don’t go along well together. Water can cause damage to the shine and age of the wood. So, always mix the hot water with dish soap or detergent and then dip the cloth in it and apply it on the wooden piece once it has been cleaned using a simple dry cloth. Now, don’t wait for the moisture on the surface to evaporate itself, instead of dry every wet part with a dry cloth immediately.

Step 2: Clean the carvings

Some of the furniture at home is specially designed using different carvings. It is essential to remove the grime and dirt from those carvings before applying the polish. Thus, a detergent water mixture can be used to scrub it off. Moreover, you can use a regular brush or even a used toothbrush to properly work it through the carvings and remove the dirt.

Step 3: Apply the polish

Take a small piece of multiply folded muslin cloth and then dip a small amount of polish on it. Gently work its way through the grain of the wood. Apply the polish using this method on the desired parts one by one. Once a polish coating is done and it's dried, never coat that part again. It’s a crucial point to remember. Always use a single coating for all furniture.

Step 4: Let it dry and shine

Once you are done with polishing, the real shine will appear after the wood has dried completely. The shine would be as good as newly bought furniture. Keep it away from direct sunlight and let it dry at room temperature. Generally, it takes around one hour for the polish to dry and the furniture can be used after that.

Conclusion

Regular polish of wooden furniture not only enhances its beauty but also protects it from surface corrosion and termite. The polish leftover can be saved for a long time and it doesn’t get spoiled with time. The polish is cheap and it's useful for all kinds of wooden furniture at home including beds, dressing tables, windows, showcases, wooden floors, and doors.