Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Adventures in refinishing part 2, a round cocktail table (Status: I like my refinisher shaken, not stirred)

This pencil legged cocktail  table was priced right at the South High St. Salvation Army for a refinishing experiment; it ended up so nice that it sold in the first hour I had it available!  

This is a round Basset cocktail table that's about four feet across.  It's not a super high quality piece but it looked nice and it was cheap enough that if I messed up, it wasn't going to break my heart.  As you can see the top has some bad scratches

Here are some close ups of the damage


I got out my Zinsser Strip Fast and went at the finish, I like to use the stripper to dissolve the old clear coat before I get Medieval with the sander.   The camera ate my "after stripper" pic so I only have this one close-up view.
Then I got out the random orbital sander and used a piece of 120 grit sandpaper to remove the rest of the finish.  I used 120 because the veneer is probably not very thick on this table.  Here is a shot "in progress".
Now the table has been stripped naked and is smooth as a baby's bottom.
If I had some additional time available I would have taped off two segments and given them a a staining to make them stand out , like the original finish.  Instead I just gave the whole piece a coat of the Varathane gel stain in American Walnut followed by a couple of coats of Varathane polyurethane (and a quick 220 sanding between coats).  This pic was taken as the table was drying after the second coat of poly (for some reason the pic makes it look streaky and blotchy, which it was not)
It's ALIVE!!!!!  I had this at the Fall Flea the next day and it sold within the first hour.
I'll show off a long, low Danish style surfboard table and a pair of step end tables that I refinished in the next post.


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