Refinish

I had a twenty year old table come in over the weekend for a refinish. These jobs work well as gap fillers between large projects or as a mindless task to warm up with on a Monday morning.

The table is disassembled, the skirts carefully marked for orientation and the hardware collected into a labeled container.



I used to use chemical strippers but have since switched to sanding the old finish off. A worn belt on the stroke sander works faster, cheaper, and with a better result. Furthermore, I don't have to deal with the chemical.






The top is then clamped to my benchtop and the edge profile is cleaned.



I use a card scraper to remove the old lacquer and to clean right into the inside corner of the fillet, then a piece of sandpaper finishes the job.



The entire edge is done, the top inspected closely and the flaws marked. The top is put back on the stroke sander for a final clean up.



A coat of Watco Fruitwood danish oil is applied, the original colour. If this were any other species I would go ahead and spray two coats of lacquer, but because red oak is so pourous I need to wait. The surface needs to be wiped down periodically as oil seeps out then finally cures.



After the oil has dried I spray a coat of post-cat nitrocellulose lacquer. Twenty minutes later I sand it with a 220 sanding sponge, and give it a second coat.



Assembled and ready for another twenty years!