I took a day and restored the Bakelite cabinet of my Motorola 9T1. I Had not heard of anyone using wood stain to restore a Bakelite cabinet and I wanted to try it. After giving the cabinet a good cleaning I stained it first with Red Oak . Then applied a second coat of Colonial Cherry to darken it a little more. The cabinet could have been left alone after the staining since it dried clean and smooth and was quite beautiful but I wanted a satin finish to create a more aged look so I finished off by spraying it with a satin finish oil based poly. The chassis was restored by Tom Albrecht earlier in the year.



http://s1184.photobucket.com/albums/z324/charokeeroad/Motorola%209T1%20Restoration/

I am restoring the same set and I have been scrubbing and waxing and scrubbing and waxing for what seems like forever. The bakelight is just plain faded like yours. Yours looks great and I am probably going to end up staining mine after seeing your results. Two questions for you though. Not being able to see it in person how close a match do you think you had with the red oak? Would something with a little more brown be in order if I wanted stay closer to the bakelight color? Secondly, I'm thinking I'd want to try for a higher gloss finish. If I used a high gloss Poly to achieve this, I'd like to here your comments.
Thanx,
Bret

Edit: never mind.

Phil

I am restoring the same set and I have been scrubbing and waxing and scrubbing and waxing for what seems like forever. The bakelight is just plain faded like yours. Yours looks great and I am probably going to end up staining mine after seeing your results. Two questions for you though. Not being able to see it in person how close a match do you think you had with the red oak? Would something with a little more brown be in order if I wanted stay closer to the bakelight color? Secondly, I'm thinking I'd want to try for a higher gloss finish. If I used a high gloss Poly to achieve this, I'd like to here your comments.
Thanx,
Bret

Pugs5061. I know what your talking about. No matter how hard or long you scrub and wax you can't get the Bakelite color back. I used Red Oak for a first coat and that's the color you see on the pics that were taken outside. Like you I wanted to get it a little darker so I went back over it with Colonial Cherry . I think you could also try Red Mahogany. The finished pics show a color more like Bakelite.

The staining part is about as easy as it gets. Just dip a cloth or paper towel into the stain and go to work. I didn't let any stain build up and the cabinet just seemed to take as much stain as it needed to give it color uniformity. I used stain without poly included. I was shocked at how good it looks with just the stain. I did wipe it until it got smooth and a bit of a shine developed. I was tempted to leave it like that but I also wanted to see what a poly finish would look like so I pushed on.

The poly finish was a little more tricky. I first shot water based poly and I wasn't really happy with the way it worked. There could have been a couple reasons for that. 1 I don't have a paint booth and 2. I don't paint enough with a sprayer to know exactly how much pressure to use or what other factors to adjust to get it perfect the first time. The finish was a little rough and when I sanded (I used one of those really fine sponge sanding pads that you can get at Harbor Freight 10 in a pack) it I wore through the poly quicker than I was expecting. When you wear throught the surface of the poly your S.O.L. I applied a second coat thinking it might fill in but it didn't. I removed the water based poly and shot it with reqular oil based poly and it worked 100% better.

I don't see why you couldn't use a simi gloss. I personally won't use a high gloss again. My experience tells me that it take a pro to reallly apply it well. My attempts to use high gloss ended with me throwing a quart can away in frustration.

I'm not sure about the original Bakelite finish. It looks like it has some kind of plastic film probably lacquer on it but I think poly gets it about as close as one can get to the original finish. I want to try lacquer some time but it's getting harder to find.

Here's a good writeup on finishes.
http://polyurethanevarnish.com/

Good luck, I hope you'll post some pics of your finished set.

John

I vote for lacquer over polyurethane. Lacquer is the original finish in virtually all old cabinets. You can make it as glossy as you like, and it's easily reversible if your first attempt isn't perfect. Poly is difficult to remove.

Just my $0.02.

Phil

Hi Phil, I think I'll try Lacquer on the next one.

Thanks

Thanx for the tips! I agree with Phil about the laquer but I didn't know if it would work well with the bakelight. The top of my 1950 RCA turned out great using laquer. Now if I can just find the time to get them done. With two kids I don't get the time I need to finish anything and thusly I haven't been able to hang out here much. I will update everyone if I ever get any progress worth sharing.
Thanx,
Bret

I did basically the same thing with a severely faded Admiral 7" cabinet except I used Lacquer.

It worked pretty well but it's really difficult to wet sand the grille and front to get the smoothness I want.
Perhaps a Satin finish would be better.

I stained my Admiral 10" console but I never coated it with anything, it helped a lot but could stand another dose.

My comment about using lacquer had to do with wooden cabinets. I didn't read the original post carefully (foot in keyboard disease?).

I have no experience putting clearcoat on Bakelite. Some cabinets are too weathered to polish, so those you have to either live with or coat with something. I've heard of people painting 'em, too.

Phil Nelson