Help with Staining Kitchen Cabinets

I am trying to update my old kitchen cabinets. They are old and look dated, but they are still in good shape. I don't have the funds to replace the cabinets, so I am hoping to use General Finished Java Gel stain to basically cover up the doors and make them look a bit more updated. We are also replacing the hinges and hardware.

Here's my issue, the old hinges that were on the doors did not have any stain under them when we took them off. Add to that, we tried the Java Gel stain on an extra door we had, and you can see exactly where the old hinges were. Do I need to sand the doors down a lot more or do even strip the old finish off (typically, you don't need to do that with the gel stains, from what I can read). Or do you have any other suggestions on what I can do? I did sand to the point where the doors are smooth and there are no bumps where the hinges were, but the "shine" doesn't seem to be the same there. Any help would be appreciated.

What the old hinges looked like:


What it looks like once we took the hinge off (and with wood filler in the holes):


What it looked like on the practice door after two coats of the stain.


Thanks for you help!

 

In order for any stain to work all the old finish has to be removed.
There's no way for the stain to soak into the wood.
Going to be a real challenge with that deep grain.
They also should have been degreased before sanding, if not your grinding in the dirt.

 

The kind of stain I am using is suppose to sit more on top of the existing stains. It doesn't really penetrate the wood, it acts more like a paint.

I didn't clean the extra door much because it wasn't used in the kitchen. Maybe that is more of the issue. Do you have a specific product you use to clean them/degrease them?

 

Since you used an extra door for experiment you may be able to solve the other doors. Try looking at this site and see i9f you can use any of these bleaching methods.

USING WOOD BLEACH

 

Thank you for the link. I will take a look at it and hopefully find something that will work good. It could very well be that not having the door clean enough is my issue.

 

The last pics looks better than I would have expected. When darkening the existing finish it needs to be pretty much consistent before you start. The ridge where the hinges were tells me you didn't do enough sanding

 

I did use a coat of penetrating stain that matched as close as possible to the old finish and put that on where the hinges were before I used the gel stain. It didn't help much, but at least penetrated down into the deeper wood grain areas. I'll have to use more elbow grease and sand down more and do a better job cleaning them. Thank goodness I had the practice door. Thanks again everyone for your help.