Can you post a picture of it and the room?

After you removed the stripper did you wash it off with paint thinner or mineral spirits? Also, I had to use Klean-Strip from HomeDe for the tough stuff when I refinished my doors. The Citristrip was not cutting it.

A photo would be good. Not sure about the ink stain, but you could probably use mahogany gel stain to color-match the paint flecks in the wood.

I don't have a photo yet, just of the "before" of the desk. I was wondering if gel stain might do the trick...I bet it would fill in the pores just enough to cover that paint.

Yes, I washed down after stripping with mineral spirits and a scrubby pad. I'm going to try denatured alcohol on the ink stains and see if that helps. I do have some Klean-Strip just in case. My biggest gripe with the Citristrip is the price. I'm halfway through the large jug and not even close to being done. And even though it is much safer and less noxious than methylene chloride, you still shouldn't get it in your eye...

On a more pleasant note, the sides of the piece and the legs are looking great!

I think the ink will have permanently stained the grain. Not seeing the desk or the room, would a piece of mirror, or glass that you could put photos, post cards, etc under work to hide the stain? Or a beautiful blotter, stone remnant, etc.

As for the little white bits that remain, years ago I took white paint off an oak Hoosier cupboard. I ended up using a soft brass brush (shaped like a tooth brush) and a dental pick(!) to get the last bits of white paint out. Granted, that project took months.... :-)

Well, good news and bad. I read through some of my refinishing books last night, and I think the dark marks on the top may not be ink, but some sort of oxidation caused by moisture getting under the finish. I'm going to try and remove them with oxalic acid and see if that does the trick. Oh, and I wan't blind when I woke up, so that's good!

Yes, the brass toothbrush and some coarse steel wool is what got the piant out of the one drawer front. It didn't seem to hurt the veneer, but I went very slowly and carefully. Looks like that's what I'll be doing the rest of the fall...with proper goggles on.

I just can't see myself painting this. The wood that is stripped and clean is just lovely, even when it's just wetted down with paint thinner. Poor desk!

Citristrip -Dimethyl glutamate adpiate, n-methyl-2-pyrrolidone, Polyethoxylated cocamine.
Klean-Strip - Methylene Chloride, Methanol, Isopropyl and Ethyl alchohol
Liquid.

They are both loaded with chemicals but the Citristrips is missing any kind of chloride that I can see.(Disclaimer, I do not know the meaning of some of these chemicals). I found CitriStrip was very useful for vertical in place door surrounds and such as its thick consistency made less of a mess for indoor use. The KleanStrip won hands down on removing multiple layers faster and with less product. I used the Klean-Strip outdoors with ground cover protection. The items used with CitriStrip took much more product. There is a time and place for both and I needed both.
I will be curious to see if the Klean-Strip takes out the little in-grain paint bits.

This post was edited by jterrilynn on Wed, Oct 22, 14 at 10:08

I hope the ink spot, or whatever it is, comes out for you. Veneer tends to absorb stains much deeper than hardwood though. Once you have all the finish off, and if the stain is still there, you might try baking soda before the denatured alcohol. Make a paste of baking soda and water, cover just the stain, rub in, and clean off with a damp towel. If some stain is on the towel but not completely off the wood, repeat. Dry thoroughly when finished.

It's the same principle as the poultice used to remove stains from granite, except you can't let it sit too long.

I had a similar issue with an oak table I just refinished (paint in the grain, not the stain). I worked on it of and on for a month. Citristrip easily took off most of the paint (I leave it on for 24 hours). Additional Cistristrip helped a little. I did go to methylene chloride, and it got a little more out. I used a brass brush, and a plastic scrubby - it was a lot of manual labor.

And still I couldn't get all the paint out of the heavy oak grain. The top is pretty good; I didn't work as hard on the bottom of the drop leaves, which aren't as readily visible.

I did a fair amount of testing on the bottom of the table. I tried stain and gel stain; both seemed to highlight the white paint. I even did a coat of thinned poly to fill the grain, then tried gel stain on top - that didn't work either.

I ended up using no stain, and several coats oil-based poly.

Here is the bottom of a leaf - the white in the grain is pretty obvious:

I don't have a close-up of the top, but I have to just about get my nose to the surface before I see the remnants of white paint - and I'm looking for it.

With a dark wood like mahogany, though, I don't know if you would be as lucky.

I did read somewhere that if you apply shellac, let it dry, then use stripper, the shellac grabs the bits of paint. I didn't try it, however.

I suggest getting as much off as you can mechanically/chemically, then find an unobtrusive spot to test gel stain or whatever other finish you can think of to cover it. I'm with you - I would never be able to go to all the work of stripping a piece, find beautiful wood, and cover it up with paint. Good luck!

Listen, you can't put any water-based poultices on veneered panels. The water will for sure blister the veneer.
1) re-venneer the top. Not terribly complicated, they now have paper-backed veneers that are no harder to apply than contact paper.
2) carefully paint the veneered part of the top to look like a marble insert or something else other than wood. Dye the veneer part black. Dramatic!
3) remove the veneer and get a leather desktop fitted.
4) use a blotter.
Casey

Casey, I've been thinking through this all day, and I think you've got it.

Even if all of the brass toothbrush scrubbing didn't ruin the veneer, the process of using the oxalic acid surely would. With all of that diluting and rinsing and neutralizing, it just seems like the making for disaster.

Re-veneering sounds very, very tempting. Especially now that they have the PSA and iron-on versions. I've done small repairs with the iron on kind, and found it remarkably fast and easy. It would certainly cost more, but how many weekends would I spend scraping out paint? And now my heart is set on wood. Do you have any good suppliers you can recommend?

I may still consider some kind of paint treatment on the top, but I'll have to think about it a few days. It would be a shame to do all of this work and still end up with paint.