Wood Grayed in Areas on Chair

[Kate Beatty]

Wondering if mildew could be the cause of chair seat graying after staining? My friend is refinishing an old chair and sent me this picture asking what can be done. I’ve never encountered this before.

[wdwerker]

Looks like dirt and weathering. Sounds like a job for a curved cabinet scraper. Easy to use but it takes some practice to sharpen them. Plenty of instructions & methods & how to videos out there. Sandpaper will work but leave scratches & blur the shape of the seat.

Try scrubbing w a green scotchbrite pad/sponge and TSP( trisodium phosphate)

[Kate Beatty]

Thanks I’ll tell her to give that a try

[Wimayo]

It is hard to tell without more information. But, from the photo, it looks as if the brown sort of glossy areas still have finish on it and the "grey" areas were perhaps sanded to bare wood. Depending on the color of the stain applied, this might account for the look.

[Coop]

On 5/7/2018 at 10:51 PM, wdwerker said:

Looks like dirt and weathering. 

Try scrubbing w a green scotchbrite pad/sponge and TSP( trisodium phosphate)

+1

[Tpt life]

Looks like someone sat in uncured finish and left behind fuzz..,

Was this a re-finish? This looks like failure to remove all of the old finish, and an incompatibility between that and the new.