Dining Room Table Refinishing for months

[Hugh R]

I didn't know any better, sanding with a long board. funny, the old guy said the exact same thing about pizza boxes. Low heat, moisture,= eff up your finish...

[Bill Douglas]

Card scrapers. I had to google that.

Years ago I looked at some hand made tables that had the most beautiful finish. The lady who made them used freshly cut bits of window glass, in much the same manner as card scrapers are used. Sand paper tends to fluff up timber, freshly cut glass smooths it.

[javadog]

That table looks really great. Well worth the effort, in my opinion.

I keep our table covered, to prevent any damage to it. It’s ironic, I seldom get to see the thing as it’s covered all of the time.

I recently refinished the top of an old dresser that my youngest kid had screwed up with God knows what over the years.

[Bill Douglas]

I made a couple of skinny side tables for each side of the couch. Somewhere to sit the TV remotes and a glass of pinot.

I just sprayed half a dozen layers of PPG 1K clear coat. Car clear coat. Looks great and a nice hard surface. Plus good spraying practice.

[Hugh R]

So I have friends over for the weekend and when dinner is ready, the first thing the visiting lady does is lay a casserole right out of the 400 degree oven right on the table. Fortunately, I was there and it was about 3 seconds, no damage. I swear, some people are clueless. OTOH, my wife once put a very heavy cardboard box on the hood of the 911 and then rotated it...

And they wonder why we die earlier..

[fintstone]

Originally Posted by Bill Douglas

Card scrapers. I had to google that.

Years ago I looked at some hand made tables that had the most beautiful finish. The lady who made them used freshly cut bits of window glass, in much the same manner as card scrapers are used. Sand paper tends to fluff up timber, freshly cut glass smooths it.

When I was young, we made our own axe, hammer, crosscut saw handles, etc...from wood we cut...poor folks didn't have sandpaper. We used pieces of broken glass to scrape them until smooth.

[GH85Carrera]

Back when I was a teenager we lived in Hawaii. My dad wanted to make a coffee table of a nice chunk of Monkeypod tree. It would just fit in the VW notchback we had. Hickam AFB had a wood hobby shop and all the room and tools to do the work.

Time after time he would take the table over there, and have to leave early or have something come up and he was getting little done. He even started to say he was going to take the table for a ride instead of working on the table.

One of my mom's friends was over chatting with mom, and dad walked in carrying the table size hunk of monkeypod and said "I am going to take the table for a ride" and left with it under his arm. The hobby shop had some issue that night so 15 minutes later, he came back home with the table. Mom asked if they had a good ride and her friend was completely baffled.

It did come out nice once he was done and they had it for many years.