Refinishing a Low Table
A family member had this low-table in their living room, but suddenly noticed a wound on one corner. It appears as if an animal, perhaps a dog, had been gnawing on it.
Assuming it was a simple fix, they handed it off to me.
I was pretty sure I could never match the stain, and they didn’t like the overly dark and lacquered appearance, so we decided to strip it down and start over.
SInce I haven’t refinished anyting in quite a while, I had to re-learn some of the steps. I ended up using a chemical solution, which caused the laquer to bubble up into a goo which I scraped off with a putty knife.
The stain, since it is absorbed into the first 1/32″ or 1/16″ of wood fibers, has to be sanded out, removing some of the material. This revealed three different types of wood, and made clear some of the quick-and-dirty craftsmanship of the piece.
The probelem with color-matching:
The base, when accepting the lightest golden stain I had, immediately turned into a cherry-red-brown, which set the palette for the table top. The top was made of alder and maple, one of which accepts stain greedily, while the other’s tight pores required a lot of layering. This meant each wood had to be stained a different color to achieve an overall uniform color.
A smaller challenge is the wood in the center of the table is a lower grade wood with several coloration shifts. On a single piece of lumber it is usually from pith wood vs heartwood, but also each piece varied in grain color and pattern meaning it came several different trees. In a perfect world all the wood would be heart wood, rift sawn, and from a single tree.
The maple is the odd-man out here: the only high-quality wood. My theory is that the table was repaired at least once before with the maple, and refinished by that person with a dark stain to hide the differences in wood, and complete it with liberal applicaitons of laquer, even over the brass feet.
Finishing and Sealing
After replacing the gnawed upon maple end-piece by cutting it off and putting fresh maple in it’s place, I attempting some color matching. I finally found a balance between by mixing and matching stains and layering them to achieve a fairly uniform appearance.
To seal it, I used an oil-based General Finishes poly. After a few coats, and light sanding in between, I buffed it with brown paper to get the flat/matte sheen. (despite the finish saying ‘satin’ it still was fairly reflective.)
I polished the feet, first removing the laquer with acetone, but left the hardware alone with it’s patina and rose-gold electro-coating, which was slightly tarnished and polished off in areas.
Delivery
The owner was thrilled, saying it looked better than when she originally bought it. She was being very kind.
I do like it better, but I often wish to start from scratch rather than encounter these unforseen challenges. And yet, to work on a piece for sentimental reasons is a mirror to the relationship: you don’t get to start over from a blank template, but attentively navigate what is in front of you.
