Would varnish be a good way to colour furniture

carlowplayer

http://www.hardwareireland.ie/product/Ronseal-Colour-Varnish-Satin-250ml-or-750mlAssorted-Colour-1851/Colour-Varnish-Satin-250ml-or-750mlAssorted-Colour-1851/
Am wondering if applying varnish to my Amber coloured furniture would be a good way to change its colour to red like the mahogany colour in the link above.

Lex Luthor

Don't see why not, but I'm not a big fan of this water based varnish. Any wooden product outdoors I would always use oil based product on it

carlowplayer

Lex Luthor wrote: »

Don't see why not, but I'm not a big fan of this water based varnish. Any wooden product outdoors I would always use oil based product on it

Its indoor furniture so would a mahagony varnish stain the furniture i showed a deep red?would oil based varnish be better at this than water based varnish and would it make the wood stronger against marks and scratches

biko

Varnish would make the tone of the wood deeper and also protect it slightly against scrapes (kinda like clearcoat on a car).

carlowplayer

biko wrote: »

Varnish would make the tone of the wood deeper and also protect it slightly against scrapes (kinda like clearcoat on a car).

The furniture i want to varnish is pine and has already a finish and has been treated already.will an oil mahogany varnish damage the furniture or am i better getting a varnish of similar colour to cover up the mark and scratches

Lex Luthor

Probably already has a coat of clear varnish on it.... you would probably need to sand it down before applying something else

carlowplayer

Lex Luthor wrote: »

Probably already has a coat of clear varnish on it.... you would probably need to sand it down before applying something else

The finish looks like a plastic vinyl covering (not 100% sure)theres two layers there. I was wondering maybe i should just get a varnish thats a similar colour to the amber brown colour and paint over the small spot. Tbh i dont want to go through the trouble of have to use so much varnish and messing the colour up and my room
So any experts here on furniture and woodcare give a clue as to what type of finish is on the furniture and what is safest and economical solution.

CJhaughey

carlowplayer wrote: »

The finish looks like a plastic vinyl covering (not 100% sure)theres two layers there. I was wondering maybe i should just get a varnish thats a similar colour to the amber brown colour and paint over the small spot. Tbh i dont want to go through the trouble of have to use so much varnish and messing the colour up and my room
So any experts here on furniture and woodcare give a clue as to what type of finish is on the furniture and what is safest and economical solution.

I doubt you'll match that spot of damaged varnish back to the factory finish.
You will have to sand the whole table top and re varnish.
No way around it I am afraid, painting one small spot will always look wrong on a factory applied spray finish.

TrinityM

There's this product called General Finishes Gel Stain that will work over an existing stain/varnish as far as I'm aware (though I've not used it myself, I've read many blog posts raving about it). You would only need to do a light sanding, not all the way down to the bare wood. They have a ton of videos posted on YouTube and you can look at some of the results from other people that have used it on their facebook page. They have a few stockists in Ireland but also sell online from the UK.

Apparently I can't post links because I'm new but if you search Facebook or YouTube for General Finishes you should be able to find them. Their UK website is generalfinishes dot co dot uk (obviously substitute "dot" with .)