REFINISH A TABLE

This Instructable is intended to inspire you to get busy and refinish that old, scratched, dilapidated table that you have been thinking about throwing away.

Comments

[dimmaz88]

Hi. you do a good job of refinishing. Would you use paint stripper and various shaped scrapers? I always worry I won't remove all of the original coat and it'll end up looking naff.

Scott

[lesteryoder]

Hi Scott, I normally do not use paint strippers. I mostly sand my projects to a condition I think will take stain. I start out with corse sand paper at first then progress to finer as I go finishing with 220 or 400. I do use a scraper now and then but they are usually stright. I don't have any fancy curved ones. Most of the projects that you can see photos of in my instructables were disassembled and the round legs and such were sanded on a homemade lathe made out of a drill press and used in a verticle mode. After all sanding is finished I reassemble the project and apply stain and finish.
Thanks for your comment and question,
Lester

[seamster]

Any photos of that drill press lathe setup? I'm curious to see how you did it.

[lesteryoder]

Unfortunately I don't think that any photos of that drillpress/lathe setup exist. What I did was, I went to my local Woodcraft store and bought the following 2 items:

WoodRiver 60 degrees Ball Bearing Live Tailstock Center 1 Morse Taper #149169 $23.69

WoodRiver Deluxe 4 Spur Drive Center with Spring Loaded Center Point 1 #149172 $20.99

---THINK SAFETY--- RUN DRILLPRESS AT SLOW SPEEDS ONLY --- THIS IS A HOMEMADE SETUP AND STOCK CANNOT BE SECURED REAL TIGHT.
In most larger drillpresses the chuck can be removed from it's tapered setting and replaced with the Spur Drive Center. I then mounted the Live Tailstock Center on the drillpress table by drilling a hole in a piece of wood clamped to the table. I centered both centers with each other and then set the items to be sanded between them. They were secured by raising the table and/or lowering the Spur Drive Center. I hope this helps
BE SAFE - and as Norm always said "Wear these safety glasses." as he touched his glasses.
THANK SAFE ----- BE SAFE --- LOVE WOODWORKING AND INSTRUCTABLES
Lester

There are many other fine woodworking supply centers that these items can be purchased.

(Chuck is shown only as reference 1 MT 1/2" Keyed Chuck #142552 $39.99)

[lesteryoder]

Safety First

[seamster]

Nice, thanks for the info!

[DeliciousMystic]

am I missing something, or are there no actual instructions on how to finish a table?

[lesteryoder]

I am sorry that there are no actual instructions on how to refinish a table, you would need to already know how to work with wood and do refinishing. This was one of my first instructables and was entered in the photo instructables contest where writen instructions were not allowed and this Instructable was intended to inspire you to refinish that old, scratched, dilapidated table that you have been thinking about throwing away. I was just trying to show what some of your results could look like.

Basic steps would be to sand or strip off the old finish. (You might even want to disassemble the table first so you could reglue it to tighten up the old joints.) Continue sanding with finer sand paper until the wood is ultra smooth. Apply a stain if you want the color to be anything other than natural wood color. After the stain has dried apply any good finish in gloss, semi-gloss, or satin. You might even want to use a good oil wipe-on finish like Formbys. I am no expert or professional refinisher and I do a lot of trial and error when I refinish something. I hope this helps. I will try to answer any questions you have.

Thanks for your comment,
Good luck,
Lester

[DeliciousMystic]

Gotcha, thanks for the response. makes sense as an inspiring photo 'ible.

[lesteryoder]

TIP - View this instructable in the PDF format to see a side by side comparison of the tables.