Personally, I like those stain markers that Minwax sells. I use them for touching up the nail holes when I install pre-finished stained wood trim. They also work great for coloring scratches. But these markers just stain the wood, they don't provide any type of hard clear coating.
Cabinets:
It's my understanding that most cabinet manufacturers use lacquer to finish their cabinets. You can tell if the finish is ordinary old-fashioned nitrocellulose lacquer if it can be dissolved readily in lacquer thinner. However, today there are newer types of lacquer that are "catalyzed", which means they undergo a chemical reaction while they dry, so just because lacquer thinner doesn't dissolve the finish doesn't mean that the finish isn't lacquer. Lacquer thinner will also dissolve urethane, but it takes much longer, from my experience.
Cabinet manufacturers use lacquer because it dries very fast and it does not change the color of the stained wood (like oil-based urethane does). But lacquer is not as durable as urethane. New catalyzed or cross-linked lacquers may be more durable. But cabinet manufacturers also seem to use a fairly thin coating of finish, which I suppose explains why it wears off so quickly.
I have used spray cans of lacquer, so it's possible to touch-up the worn finish on your cabinets with a spray can. But I don't know how well the patch will blend in with the original finish. I suppose you could lightly sand the worn areas with fine sandpaper, spray them with lacquer (after you've touched up the stain), and then spray the entire door with a final coat of lacquer. I would prefer to refinish the entire surface of each door.
Caution: Spraying lacquer can be hazardous. Read aboutspray finishing locations.
Doors and Trim:
It's likely that the "clear coat" on your doors and millwork is just plain old urethane. I have nothad much luck with touching up spots of urethane, because youcan usually see the boundaries of the new spot.
My approach is to just do aquick light sanding of the old finish and apply a complete new coat.You don't normally need to remove all the old finish, just"feather" it so there are no stark transitions. Onlylight sanding is desired here, because if you sand too muchyou will begin to remove some of the stain. I always apply atleast 2 coats of urethane, 3 or 4 coats on high-traffic areas.A light sanding is necessary to scuff-up the urethane beforere-coating. I can't say that the results will look absolutelyperfect, but they won't look scratched up either. Just try asmall section.
An important issue with wood finishis sheen (shininess or gloss level). Most cabinets I've seen are a satin sheen. That "glass" look you mention sounds like high-gloss, but highly glossy wood doesn't appeal to everybody. I never use anything shinier than semi-gloss... unless I have a good reason.
Stain:
Matching stain color issomething else. Unless you know the exact brand of stain usedoriginally, all you can do is try some samples on a piece ofwood of the same species. If your wood is oak, it's probablyred oak, which is the most common hardwood used for stained trim these days.
Personally, I don't alwaystry to make stained wood match. In the case of your doors, ifyou can't get some samples to match closely, I would considertrying some complimentary stain color... but only if you are planning on refinishing the entire door.
I wouldn't be surprised ifyour millwork stain is either a name-brand of "golden oak" or non-stainedoak. This country is awash in those two colors of millwork.There are many manufacturers of stain and finding the exactcolor may require shopping around to find a few differentbrands of Golden Oak or Honey Oak stain.
Usually you can re-stainlight-colored woods to a darker stain color. You can do a lotof experimenting, that's all I do.
If you want to re-stain anywoodwork, you will need to completely remove the old urethane.Chemical strippers work well but requirewashing and drying and this takes a bit of time. The strippingis best done outdoors in warmer weather. I recently did a fewtest pieces on our 95-year-old oak trim. The stripper took thestain out completely. I've got a whole house full of trim tostrip, re-stain, and urethane. I can't wait until spring! Read more aboutstripping old varnished trim. Also, read this article aboutstripping furniture with chemical paint stripper, which may be more applicable to the task of stripping urethane from trim or doors.
I have made custom-blendedstains by mixing carefully measured quantities of variousMinwax stains. But keeping track of the color proportions iscritical, or else you won't be able to reproduce the stainagain. For small test batches I used eye-droppers and count the number of drops of liquid.
Bruce W. Maki, Editor.
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