Normally I send all of my cabinets out to my restorer for restoration or refinishing. Since he already has two of my cabinets in his shop and has no room for anything else I thought I would take a stab at some light clean up of this cabinet. The finish has some scratches and marks. The lacquer is crazed a bit on the wood sections and some of the photo finish at the bottom of the cabinet has flaked off. Overall the cabinet was not in terrible conditions though. I started with the photo finish area.
My wife paints from time to time so she got out her paints and we began to mix up some colors. I applyed a bottom coat and then mixed a darker color for the graining. Normal viewing distances away the set looks 100 times better. Luckily the area that is flaking is on the bottom curve so it isn't terribly noticable any way.
Next I turned my attention to the rest of the cabinet. After a clean up with warm water I applyed some Howard's Restor-a-finish with a 0000 steel wool and elbow greese, after which I buffed it with Howard's Feed n' Wax.
Before:
After:
I only finished the top of the cabinet. Maybe tomorrow I'll have a chance to get to the rest of it.