Howard ProductsStore Howard-RF5016

My kitchen cabinets, made of cherry plywood, are about 50 years old. They were in such horrible condition that I was thinking of painting them. There were large areas of that were missing not only the surface finish, but even the stain. In other words, they were down to bare wood in spots. I panicked when a realtor made an appointment to evaluate my house the next day!I wasn't sure if Howard's Restor-a-Finish would work after watching a YouTube video called "Where Restore-A-Finish works best and where it will not!" That video states that it will only work on shellac or lacquer finishes. It says it won't work on polyurethane or polyacrylic finishes and that the test for those finishes is to apply some alcohol to the finish and rub it with a swab---if the color comes off, Restor-a-Finish WILL work on it. I did that test and no color came off. I decided to proceed anyway, testing Restor-a-Finish on the the back of a door. That went well, so I applied it to all 14 cabinets and 6 drawers.The result was amazing. I couldn't believe my eyes. The parts that were worn down to bare wood were about 75% improved---not perfect, but much, much better. The remainder, where the finish was worn but the color was still there, were 100% better. The sheen is a pleasant sort of "egg shell," not flat but not too shiny either. The realtor didn't notice anything amiss with the cabinets!I was lazy and didn't even wash the cabinets before starting. They still came out great. The best part is that the whole job took less than one hour! I don't know how this product works, but it does. It's like magic. One caveat: it smells pretty bad, so do open a window, but the smell disappeared quickly after the job was done. I spilled some on the floor tiles and it wiped up easily.Definitely one of my best Amazon purchases. It saved me a huge amount of money and/or time and probably added to the value of my house.

I do very few Amazon reviews. This one was worth reviewing. Thanks to all those that shared before me and helped me make my choice.I did my pine bedroom set. I was amazed how easy it was to apply. I used paper towels.No lint. Could toss after use into a sealable plastic bag.It took about an hour to do a dresser, head and foot board and night stands.It has a gloss-not high gloss -which is great. Almost all of the scratches, except fairly deep ones, disappeared. I did not try the steel wool.I think I will touch up with paint set I bought on Amazon.I was going to call professionals to do it. Glad I tried this first.I think I used less than half of the twelve ounces.

The media could not be loaded. This is a very good product that performs as promised to restore and clean many wood finishes.Restoration is not the same as refinishing. On some types of wood furnishings and finishes, it will improve the appearance dramatically, remove blemishes and clean the wood.It works best on:-Furniture that is scratched with a dull stained finish-Fine furniture with a shiny lacquer finishIt will improve the appearance of badly scratched furniture with the above types of finishes.It does not work well on sealed finishes (polyurethane).I have used this product in all of the above situations. Following are some of the results achieved.First, a small pine table with a dull finish appeared shabby and needed improvement. The surface was severely scratched, with mostly surface level damage. After a five minute simple wipe-on application of the product using a rag, the results were dramatic. If I wanted to fuss over this piece, I would reapply using fine steel wool and touch up some of the gouges with a stain pen. Six months later, the table looks almost as it did prior to using the product, and it needs to be reapplied.Howard's Restor-A-Finish proved it's worth during my second project, the restoration of a high quality solid wood table top with a glossy, lacqueredfinish.The table had white heat marks the size of a salad plate that would not disappear with any previous methods attempted.Prior to using this product, I attempted to remove the white marks by researching solutions in Google. "Removing white heat marks from wood" yielded several cautious attempts from "applying steam again" to using toothpaste, mayonnaise and other so-called "remedies". The white marks remained in the finish.When I found out about the Howard's product here on Amazon, I read some of the reviews where reviewers claimed they were able to remove white rings by simply wiping the product on with a rag. I tried this and it did not work. I was afraid my money went down the tubes, but decided to try using steel wool.0000 Steel Wool was too soft and ineffective. With 000 grade, it took some patient effort, but less than ten minutes later the white marks were gone. Replenishing the piece of steel wool regularly increased the effectiveness of the process. Work with the grain, use light pressure and keep checking your results to be sure you don't damage the finish. (See before and after photos.)Howard's is also an excellent product to polish and detail wood furniture that is already in good shape, reviving it a bit and making it look exceptionally clean and shiny. For best results with wood finishes that need cleaning, use steel wool.As mentioned earlier, the product will improve the appearance of some finishes, but does not do anything that I would consider restorative on certain finishes.For example, I wiped it on a small table that appears to have had a polyurethane finish that was in poor condition. It deposited a light stain in the areas that were lighter, but the result wasn't very impressive. The areas where the urethane finish was not damaged was cleaned, but the stain was unable to penetrate the lighter scratches. The only solution for this type of situation is either covering the old finish or removing it.A similar result was obtained on a very old veneer top using steel wool and minimal elbow grease. The result is better than before, but the wood still shows a lot of the underlying damage.Another mediocre result was achieved on a furniture with deep scratches. The product changed the color of the scratches and improved the appearance dramatically. However, the damage was still visible. Better results were achieved by filling the scratches with a wood crayon, and smoothing them out using fine steel wool and a light hand to prevent marring the finish. This is a stop-gap solution for furniture that either should be refinished or painted.All in all, this is an excellent product for cleaning and addressing many wood furniture problems without refinishing.

This stuff is super easy for even a total beginner. What it's *best* at is helping to lift scuff marks, ie stuff on top of the existing finish that you don't want.It's also good at evening out the finish - kinda like blurring primer for your face? Or top coat on a smudged manicure? Cuz what it seems to do is slightly soften the existing finish, then enhance/ blend it with the tint of whatever color you chose.I used Dark Walnut, and it worked fine on 3 different pieces of furniture that were all different shades of medium-dark brown.What it doesn't work for:• filling in scratches• evening out dents or nicks in the wood itself• covering specks of bare woodMaybe unsurprisingly, I got better results on my higher quality pieces of furniture. On cheap veneer, i was left with kind of a scratched up mess.