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Tag: Refinishing

The Table Project: Told in Six Parts, over the next three months… or not.

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Had two hours empty yesterday before I needed to pick up the kids from school so I eagerly jumped into the garage wood shop to begin sanding the old scratched finish off of the table. All three portions are slightly different colours due to sun exposure, or lack thereof. The middle leaf being the darkest and most lustrous due to never having been used. So I took up my brand new belt sander, which immediately started to blow scorching hot air out the back, melted the finish I was trying to sand off, directly into the very fibers of the sandpaper belt, and I had to switch back to my trusted Milwaukee orbital sander. Ugh! I honestly wanted the belt sander to work so that I could cover more square inches faster. Maybe I’ll need to save the belt sander for higher grits that take less pressure to remove. The heat bothers me, as the sander is brand new, and never used before. So not too sure about that.

But plan was/is : remove old stain and finish on top surface, and around the sides. Sznd through the grits (60, 80, 100, 120, 150, 220) blowing off the dust inbetween. Spritz with water and sand again at 220 grit. Round over the outside edges, as the table is a wee bit sharp as is. Sand as needed. Apply Danish Oil with a darker Walnut stain in it. Wipe off excess. Lightly sand with 300/400 grit sand paper. Reapply Danish Oil. Let dry. Buff with 400 grit sand paper. Apply wipe on poly finish. Then set the table top aside, and begin cutting my Walnut legs, gluing them up, drying, trying up the faces, chopping to length, rounding over edges, and then building captive boxes specific to each leg, in all four corners of the table. Drilling out the fixture holes. Screwing in the inserts. Then wiping on my poly finish to the legs. Disassemble, and bring down stairs into the basement to replace crappy old folding table where the kids play legos, and do puzzles.

I could be done in three/four days, or it will take me until December to complete. Hardly any inbetween around this type of thing. Life/work gets in the way. So there is that to look forward to. I didn’t take any pictures yet. May only do so once I finish the whole project and set it up down stairs. So stay tuned for updates on this potential catastrophe. Should be a fun time had by all.

***Editor’s note: Turns out the fancy shmancy mahogany hard wood table is actually Poplar with thin veneer on it. Which I sanded through in spots die to how bad the gouging, scraping, and scratching was. So, change of plans. Sanding to 220 only. No roundover on top surface. Danish oil, with no poly top coat. And I’m going to make Ash legs, and not waste my Walnut on this cut rate table. So I’ve spent some time cutting, and milling an Ash board to make four sturdy legs with no glue ups required. Still need to make four captured ends to lock them to the table though. Will still round over the legs. But now they’re going to be more square in profile than rectangular. No big deal. I’ve jointed one face, and one perpendicular edge. Now I can run them through the planer. Cut the two bits into four matching legs, and finish those up without any need for glue. One fewer piece of Ash to get in my way. Also – saving my Walnut for another project, SCORE!

Upon sanding out the gouges I’ve learned that this is a veneered Poplar table.
Danish Oil Walnut Stain will not cover the veneer wear through. So a new line of attack is required. Now, it’s just a refurbished crafting/homework table, rather than being entirely “restored”. I don’t wish to redo the veneer. I don’t have the patience, tools or know-how for that. No desire either, at this point.

As you can see, even after removing the original fi ish (image not shown) the middle leaf is still an entirely different colour from the rest of the table. I’m going to lean into that mottled look by using Ash legs, stained in a Walnut oil. Sturdy, but not an heirloom piece to be coveted by children, and extended family alike.

The Table Refinishing Project of late 2021

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Some of you might know that in late summer through until late fall I had attempted to build a screen door for the back of my house, which I started far too late, and missed open window / wide open door season by several weeks. So that lead me to putting that project on the back burner until Spring time when I feel as though I can devote time to it, and the weather will warrant my doing so. So, after putting that on hold I wanted another project to do in my down time between paid graphic design work. The table was delivered in several pieces on November 2nd, as I recall, and was in a state of disrepair.

It had cracked and crumbling paint, water stains, mould, flaking lacquer finish on the top, and smelled a bit funky to boot. It didn’t have any middle leaves, and the leg attachment points were worn out or missing or entirely broken. So it required me to strip it all down to bare wood, cut new hardwood braces for the legs, glue/ screw / pin nail portions together and then to be refinished with stain & paint and possibly if the weather holds out a clear coat on top of Varathane’s Diamond Wood Finish.

Follow along on my mini wood refinishing project from November / December of 2021

The original Table top with water stains and mould patches.
Breaking down the table into its individual components for sanding and cleaning.
The original state of the four legs.
A comparison of one sanded table portion and the untouched side.

As I stated earlier, the table arrived in pieces, and I needed to break them down into smaller parts for cleaning and sanding, and looking for any major cracks, weakness or damages. This didn’t take me more than about thirty minutes for the whole table. I knew the leg braces were either missing or broken, and that the lower portion of the table legs would need some putty work. No big deal there. I opted not to use any chemical strippers on the table as I don’t have an exhaust fan at the moment, and smells from the garage make their way into the basement (which isn’t ideal). So I used sanding, a whole shit load of sanding. I went from 40 to 60 to 80 to 100 to 120 to 220 grits on all of the parts. The table top I went an extra step and went up to 320 grit, because I had it, and it gets so smooth, it feels like glass. My work flow was to do every piece using the same grit, so that I always knew where I was with my sanding schedule. It helps that this old workers table was put together with a lot of screws, so I could disassemble it easily to get to all of the nooks and crannies. Also made putting the sections back together a breeze.

The legs were stripped using a heat gun and putty knife, and then a card scraper.
Keeping track of my pieces in between grits when sanding.
Started to glue up the skirts and leg braces where they bolt to the table.
Adding Danish oil with a dark walnut stain embedded in it to the skirts and underside of the exposed table.
Adding the Danish oil to the table top.
Admiring the colours of the Danish Oil finish.

The legs were by far the most difficult portion to work on. I had originally thought I would chuck each leg into my lathe, turn the speed right down and sanding them with little to no physical demands on my body, but my four jaw chuck choose this moment to crap out on me, and replacing it was too expensive at this point in time. So the forty dollar heat gun makes an appearance and storms the barn! It was great. I could get through one leg in about 1 hr. After I had the heat gun and putty knife put away, I turned to a curved card scraper to really get in there and get those layers of nasty chipped old paint off of the legs. Leaves a nice finish that is easy to sand – relatively. Then it was about four hours of hand turning the legs with one hand, and sanding vigorously with the other. My forearms and hands did not appreciate this at all. Once I got up to 150 grit, I used an air compressor to blow off the dust that gathered in the crevices. I used the bolts to hang them up along my garage door, and then used a rattle can of white paint/primer 2X to paint them a bright white again. Originally I wanted to go with a softer off white, borderline yellow – feel more french with the walnut top, but I couldn’t find any, and I wasn’t going to drive all over town just to not find it. I let those hang dry, and then I artificially antiqued them with some 220 grit sand paper, and they were done.

The colours have a stark contrast.
Finished table – all assembled and ready to deliver.

If it weren’t so close to zero degrees celsius here in Ontario I would venture to add the spray on clear coat of Varathane Diamond Wood Finish, but I don’t want it to get chunky or spit out blobs that you can feel under your hand. So all in all it took me about twenty hours over six weeks to get this project done, and I enjoyed just about every minute of it, except those spindle legs! Straight blocky chunky legs only next time!

Two years ago I refinished a rocking chair, but I can’t find any of those images. Next year I hope to tackle either another table or perhaps a chest of drawers or an old hutch of some kind. Hope you have a great Holiday Season, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year! May your wood working DIY projects go smoothly or at least teach you a valuable lesson. ~M

A Slight Change of Plan.

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Due to my missing a summer and early fall deadline for my hand built screen door build, I’m going to shift gears for a bit and move on to refinishing a table for my in-laws that has some water damage, fifteen layers of paint and needs some TLC. I’m going to break it down into the smallest allowable pieces and then sand the hell out of it, before I decide if I’m going to repaint it white, or stain it to make it look a little more classy. I had hoped to get further along on my screen door build, but my hand cut mortise and tenons are taking forever, and I can’t seem to cut a straight line for shit. On the up side, the reason I didn’t meet my warm weather deadline to hang the screen door, was because I used those eight weeks of school term without kids around to tackle every other home DIY project, so I’m not too upset about it. I may very well be worth it for me, to practice some of those mortises before committing to an exterior door. If I can remember to i will attempt to take some photos of the table to be finished, but I doubt I’ll remember. I was fortunate enough to get through one of this weeks two marketing reports over the weekend, freeing up some time to do more woodworking. I thought I’d have to wait to start until next week, but nope! I hauled ass, and did page by page proofing as I went. It also helps that I spent some time on the front end building up my pages so it could be a smooth process to build out my reports with actual, factual data sets. Time to clean up the yard, and put away the summer toys, as we’re in Canada and it could start to snow at any minute, and we’ll not come out of it until late April. Cheers! to you all!