Furniture Polish!!

[RedHotSS]

I was reading on a car forum that someone was using Mr Sh**n furniture polish to polish his car. According to him, it makes the black paint absolutely shine. The thought of it makes me shudder. Surely this would be harmful to the paint, wouldn't it?

[Mike Phillips]

Most furniture is what is referred to as finished, this is the furniture industries way of saying furniture is painted. From my understanding, most furniture is still coated, painted finished, (choose your term), with clear, (un-pigmented), nitrocellulose lacquer paint. This seals the wood, protects the wood and brings out the beauty of the wood by highlighting the grain.

This being true, then whenever you work on finished furniture, you're not working on wood, you're working on paint.

So its completely possible applying a car wax, a product formulated to work on automotive paint, acts to improve the appearance of furniture, this would be especially true if the appearance of the furniture has diminished, thus the before & after in the eyes of the person applying the product would be dramatic, just like using a cleaner/wax on an oxidized finish.

Kind of like this before and after,





What might be interesting is to see a well done side-by-side comparison of the product he's using a Meguiar's Furniture Cleaner and Furniture Polish,



(We've perfected the art of polishing furniture long before we perfected the art of polishing automobiles)

[Mike Phillips]

For furniture that is unfinished, (the furniture industries term for furniture that has not been painted), you can use a a product like Meguiar's Natural Finish Preserver.


Thank you to 2hotford for the below photo.

[rusty bumper]

Originally posted by Mike Phillips
For furniture that is unfinished, (the furniture industries term for furniture that has not been painted), you can use a a product like Meguiar's Natural Finish Preserver.

I would include Meguiar's Lemon Oil for that too.

[RedHotSS]

Thanks Mike, that was very interesting, but if you re-read my original post this guy was using furniture polish on his CAR! My question is, wouldn't furniture polish be harmful to CAR PAINT?

[Mike Phillips]

Sorry, RedHotSS... I should have mentioned that the same type of lacquers used on furniture were the same kind of lacquers used on cars when cars started being manufactured. Over the years paint technology has changed dramatically, but at the same time... paint is paint... It's a thin coating applied over some type of surface to protect it from deterioration and add beauty.

Your post made it sound like the furniture polish he used made the paint look good, I guess the extreme opposite would be the product he used would have made the paint look bad?

If it's making the paint look good, how bad can it be? If it's a furniture polish formulated to be used on finished wood, that means is a product formulated to be used on paint. Regardless of what the paint is applied to.

[RedHotSS]

Ahh, okay. Sorry Mike, I misunderstood your response. You're right, it supposedly did make the paint look good. I thought there may have been some long term harmful effects of using furniture polish. That's something new I've learnt today. I don't think I'll try it on my car though - I'll stick to Meguiars products.

BTW, that "after" photo of the Merc is absolutely phenomenal. Wish I could get my car to look like that.

Regards,

Steve

[Mike Phillips]

It's cool...

Everyone that sees the before and after of that Mercedes-Benz is blown away, including the owner!