Ok, this has been my project that I've been working on for a little while. We bought a drop-leaf table for $25, and it was in decent condition. As you can see from the top two pics, there were some white, heat marks, and also some damage to one edge of the table. So the first thing I did, was applied a finish remover, and let it sit/react for a few minutes. Then you scrape off the finish, and I had to do that a second time to get off what I missed the first time. After getting the finish off, I filled in the damaged areas with some wood filler (no picture of me doing this). Then, I sanded the whole thing with 100 grit then 220 grit sand paper. After sanding, I stained the table top, since we wanted it a little darker than the natural color of the wood, and we went with English Chestnut. After staining, I put on the semi-gloss protective finish. After the first coat, I lightly sanded it down with 220 grit, then applied a second coat. I was nervous that I was ruining the whole thing when I was sanding off that first coat, but I think that it ended up pretty good. There's a couple finished pictures at the end, and the final pic shows the edge where the damage was. You can still see some discoloration, but at least there aren't chunks out of the wood. So this has been a fun project, and someday I may have to try refinishing the legs and the rest of the table.
Ok, this has been my project that I've been working on for a little while. We bought a drop-leaf table for $25, and it was in decent condition. As you can see from the top two pics, there were some white, heat marks, and also some damage to one edge of the table. So the first thing I did, was applied a finish remover, and let it sit/react for a few minutes. Then you scrape off the finish, and I had to do that a second time to get off what I missed the first time. After getting the finish off, I filled in the damaged areas with some wood filler (no picture of me doing this). Then, I sanded the whole thing with 100 grit then 220 grit sand paper. After sanding, I stained the table top, since we wanted it a little darker than the natural color of the wood, and we went with English Chestnut. After staining, I put on the semi-gloss protective finish. After the first coat, I lightly sanded it down with 220 grit, then applied a second coat. I was nervous that I was ruining the whole thing when I was sanding off that first coat, but I think that it ended up pretty good. There's a couple finished pictures at the end, and the final pic shows the edge where the damage was. You can still see some discoloration, but at least there aren't chunks out of the wood. So this has been a fun project, and someday I may have to try refinishing the legs and the rest of the table.
