Screwed up painted furniture--how to fix?

[tomorrowsomewherenew]

Our (all-wood) furniture had gotten dinged up over several moves so we decided to paint it. We sanded it down, used several coats of white oil-based primer, sprayed it with Rustoleum white satin, and topped it off with Minwax Polycrylic. Now, it's starting to yellow where the light is not hitting it (under lamps). It's minor, but it's driving me nuts and I want to fix it. Where do I start?

[sokoloff]

It's one of two things, the first way more likely than the second.

The most likely is that Polycrylic yellows somewhat over some white finishes. (They don't call it "yellowing"; they call it "embering".) The solution if this is the problem is to use a clear lacquer varnish next time you refinish the furniture.)

The much less likely problem is that the underlying finish is UV bleaching, making the area hit by light less yellow looking. This can be addressed by using a UV blocking topcoat, but I suspect this isn't your issue.

[tomorrowsomewherenew]

Interesting. So, if I sand it down a bit (enough to take off the polycrylic), paint another coat or two, and top it off with the lacquer varnish, that should fix it?

[sokoloff]

In your situation, I'd start with another piece of wood, finish it according to the protocol you're contemplating re-doing the furniture with, and leave that out to see if it yellows or does anything else that will drive you crazy. (Refinishing furniture, especially taking off old finish mechanically, is a lot of effort, so I think it's worth doing a test piece.)

[tomorrowsomewherenew]

I thought of that last night. I've got a small drawer front I haven't done yet, so I'm going to try that first and see if I can get it to turn out properly using different paints.

After reading up a bit, I think it may actually be the oil-based paint. I see a lot of posts online about white, oil-based paint yellowing in closets (dark places), which is essentially what happened to me. The part of the tabletop covered by the lamp base yellowed, and the rest is still white.  And I think it yellowed all the way through the top coat. Ugh. I'll give the drawer a go and see what happens.