Refinishing question (UPDATE 5/3/10)

[planovet]

To all the furniture re-finishers out there I have a question. My wife saw this little table at a flea market and just had to have it. The price was right so we bought it. It sat in the garage while I built my tear but now the tear is finished I needed a project. I stripped the finish off the table and have sanded it down. I have no idea what finish to apply. The tops of the two discs are a nice veneer but the edges so the upper and lower veneers and the cheap wood in between. Also the finish did not all come off so there are dark and light spots in the wood. I would like to have it be a wood look but a regular stain would show the aforementioned blemishes.

Any ideas?

Before:



After stripping and sanding:

[halfdome, Danny]

Mark, I'm no expert. Building new is so much easier so I always avoid taking on a refinishing job because of the mess, fumes and blotching problems.

Good preparation is the key to a successful finishing project.

For your project to be successful you will need to remove all traces of the old finish even if it means taking the risk of going through the veneer. I would use a new single edge razor at about a 55 deg angle and use it like a cabinet scraper. You'll be amazed how gentle it is to the wood but removes the old finish with ease. I use one to remove runs or sags in finishes with great success.

Some may not agree, but scraping wood is superior over sanding it. The clarity of the wood is enhanced with scraping where machine sanding bends over the fibers and leaves swirl marks. That said I do most of my work with a sander but never skip more that one grit as you'll have a difficult time removing swirl marks. Any sandpaper over 150 grit is just polishing the surface and your stain may be blotchy.

Those cracks can be gently dug out with a sharp utility knife blade by itself and then use the proper color putty to fill it in and sand. Sometimes I'll use a magnifying glass to make sure all glue is removed from joints and cracks. Use a strong light and look at the surface at right angles to make sure the wood is clean of the old finish.

Others may have their own take on it but I don't like the way oil based stains behave. Good luck on your new project. Danny

[planovet]

Thanks Danny.

Well, I did get all the old finish off the table. I used a dental instrument in the detailed areas but it's all off. What I meant was after sanding there are still light and dark areas in the wood from the previous stain/finish. Now I could keep sanding until I get all the wood the same color but then I would have uneven areas on the legs and such. And to be honest, I don't want to put that much work into it. It's not going to be a show piece, I just want it to look decent. And no matter how much I sand a regular stain would show the veneer layers and wood differences on the sides of the discs.

I've never used an opaque stain before, would that work or are there better options to keep the wood look?

[halfdome, Danny]

Mark, I too have dental picks in my tool box for that same reason . I always use stain that has a lacquer thinner base to it as it behaves the way I want it to. I can use it to touch up light areas between coats of cured lacquer to even out the finish. Danny

[48Rob]

Mark,

I'm no expert either...

Danny covered it pretty well.

Sanding sealer will help on some parts of the table to even out the absorption of the stain.

Many furniture makers use cheap wood, with veneer on the most seen/used surfaces, and "cheat" by using a heavily pigmented finish to blend all the irregularities into an acceptable overall finish.

Stain and clear finish is generally reserved for higher quality pieces.

"Color matching" is what most refinishing work of the type you're doing amounts to.

Rob

[goldcoop]

Mark-

Ditto on Danny & Rob's accessment.

The sanding sealer as a base, I find the gel type stains work well to work out the light-dark areas with a rag. Followed by a thinned down sealer on top of this. You can go back & adjust color with the same stain after it's sealed. Top coat.

Light sanding/tack cloth between sanding sealer/sealer/top coat layers.

Allow AMPLE drying time between all steps.

Make SURE all materials used are COMPATIBLE with one another.

Any dark areas in nooks & crannies will look like the patina of wax build up over the years...

You can do it!

Cheers,

Coop

[eamarquardt]

When I had a boat with teak trim, I used oxalic acid to "bleach" the teak to a uniform bright color before applying the varnish.

Mabye bleaching the piece before staining it would produce better results.

Check out this site:

http://www.wood-bleach.com/

I dunno, just a thought. I tell my boyz: "If what you are doing isn't working, do someting different".

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Gsu

[prohandyman]

Mark
The best refinisher I have found in my wood refinishing travels is....
"Kramers Best Antique Improver", by Kramer Products Inc. Their number is 816-252-9512. They sell their products thru distributors such as antique malls and the like. This is the only refinisiher I have had consistant success with, and would highly recommend it. It is not a stain, but a blend of turpentines and wood achohols. Wipe on, and wipe dry. Very nice for old wood looks.

[caseydog]

With that blotchiness, you'll want to use a pre-stain treatment. That kind of wets the wood and makes it take stain evenly.

I would use a pretty dark stain, and leave it on a while to go for a dark color. That will hide the cheap wood and you should have less noticeable differences in color. A dark stain will also look more like an antique patina, too.

I have a bunch of antiques in my home, but I didn't take them that far down to refinish them. I wanted to keep the old patina, so I just sanded to smooth out the original varnish, stained my scratches to blend in, and did a few coats of modern polyurethane finish.

When you get into the color of the wood, you make it harder to get a nice even look. And remember, an antique piece of furniture shouldn't look new.

CD

[starleen2]

Mark - i can tell you about how old that table is: my mother had one Exactly the same. I grew up with it in the house - she got it before I was born - so it's over 45 yrs old! I could be wrong - but it's spot on! My sister now has it - Mom left it to her since she is the oldest and had first pick

[nevadatear]

have you washed with lacquer thinner to try to remove any remaining stain?

[eamarquardt]

I would use a pretty dark stain, and leave it on a while to go for a dark color.CD

I always thought that "cherry" furniture was ugly because it was so dark and forboding looking. I find dark furniture "dark" in emotion. Then I found a Stickley television cabinet on Craigslist for three hundred bucks (it was probably over 3K new). It was almost a natural finish and the colors and wood grain are beautiful. I got it home and it exactly matched a Stickley bed we had purchased at a furniture store that was going out of business. Because the bed consisted mostly of narrow slats the beauty of the grain didn't stand out. I "got lucky" and found a Stickley china cabinet, dresser, and serving stand that now serves as a nightstand for our guest room all off of Craigslist for a fraction of the new (I have to have it now) price. I also got a Stickley writing desk and my wife (but she got it on sale at 1/2 the "I have to have it now price) bought a brand new chair that matches it. The desk and chair are stained dark (as all the other pieces of Cherry I'd seen in the past) and they are not nearly as pretty (IMHO) as the lighter Cherry with it's reddish hues.

I vote (not that my votes ever count) you figure out how to lighten it with some kind of bleach or other treatment, then stain it a color that will bring out the grain and not hide the grain with a dark stain.

Cheers,

Gus

[48Rob]

Gus,

Everyone’s vote counts!

While I agree that lighter stains/hues are a better choice for nice pieces of wood, the problem facing Mark is that he doesn't have the same finishing options as one would if they were starting with a high quality piece.

The piece he has is/was made of cheap, blemished wood.
Some of the pieces that make up the table are light colored; some are dark, and some in between.

It is easy enough to make lighter colors darker, but much harder to make darker colors lighter.
It can be done to some degree by bleaching, but it is nearly impossible to bleach a blotchy piece of wood to a condition that one could call "even".

The furniture manufacturers have perfected the art of color matching with stains and heavily pigmented top coats, to blend all the pieces with their imperfections into something the consumer is willing to accept.

I have some original Stickley pieces.
They are fumed Oak, pretty dark, but pleasant to look at as the grain is not hidden by a pigmented finish.

Rob

[planovet]

Everyone’s vote counts!

While I agree that lighter stains/hues are a better choice for nice pieces of wood, the problem facing Mark is that he doesn't have the same finishing options as one would if they were starting with a high quality piece.

The piece he has is/was made of cheap, blemished wood.
Some of the pieces that make up the table are light colored; some are dark, and some in between.

Bingo!

It's a cheap piece and I just want to make it look decent. Even if I could lighten it up I still would have the layers of veneer exposed on the edges of the tabletops. I don't want to paint it and I want it to retain a wood look. I'm going to clean it up the best I can and try a darker stain to cover up the blemishes. It won't be perfect but neither is what I'm starting with.

[eamarquardt]

The piece he has is/was made of cheap, blemished wood.

The truth comes out. Yer right, ya kant make a silk purse outta a sow's ear!

Cheers,

Gus