As a wedding gift to ourselves, my wife and I had a friend build a mission dinning table. This table is oval shaped when the two leaves are in. I had some experience in finishing. The cherry top was sanded down to 220, multiple layers of Watco (at least six) applied sanding wet and dry 400 grit in between. Since then it has been waxed occasionally.
After 26 years, two kids, many dinner and and a lot use I want to make a mends to it. Looking for suggestions. There are some water rings and other stains, and center has been covered by a runner. I’m surprised that it hasn’t turned darker, it has a nice orangish tone. I’d like to hear some thoughts.
Thanks.
Replies
I think a picture of the top and the entire table would be helpful in guiding the advice. Cool story..
A full re-finish will change the character of the tabletop.
With wax used, I would strip the finish with chemical stripper, scrub off with steel wool and see what you have left. I hear that oxalic acid can be used to bleach water stains but I have never done that myself.
With very light hand-sanding, this will leave the top with most of it's dings and scratches that show it's age and also most of it's patina.
You could of course sand aggressively, but then it will be a new tabletop. If you wanted that, I suspect you would already have done it!
Yeah, I want to keep the patina. The stripper is good idea. George Frank would use gasoline. To keep it simple I’m thinking finishing again with Danish Watco.
Which Watco product? They make poly (on the wood) and danish/teak/tung oils (in the wood) finishes. 6 coats of danish oil are a different animal than 6 coats of polyurethane.
Natural Danish.
Stripper's not how I would go. Pick a white ring and clean the wax from that area as a test. Use some 000 steel wool to work some more watco into the surface then wipe it off, give it a coupla days and see how it looks before you get really agressive with it. My $0.02
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