I have this antique wood table, how can I restore it?

October 30, 2015 7:23 PM

Here is picture. It is either walnut or oak, I am not sure. I believe those are water marks on it. The marble top lifts off so it should be pretty easy to restore. I would like to keep the wood look, no painting. What would be simplest way to do this? I have never done anything like this before.
posted by just asking to Home & Garden (6 answers total)

The pictures aren't really good enough to see the problem you want to address.
posted by jon1270 at 7:41 PM on October 30, 2015

I have used Howard's Restor-A-Finish in Neutral (which does not have added pigment so it will match whatever color wood you have) to smooth out nicks and dings in a secondhand cherry bookcase. It evened out the finish and gave it the well-maintained-but-still-with-vintage-character look I wanted. It's a fairly conservative approach and won't completely hide every mark but it's definitely easier than trying to sand/match a stain/restore. If the water marks are really bad, then perhaps opt for one of the Restore-A-Finish tinted stains and see how it looks.
posted by snowleopard at 8:23 PM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]

Howells Restore a Finish, in a color just one step darker, to blend it all together. Use triple ought steel wool to drive it into water leached surfaces. Then carnuba wax.
posted by Oyéah at 8:24 PM on October 30, 2015

From the pictures you have, it looks like you just want to refinish the apron. The first thing to check is to clean it very thoroughly with mineral spirits. The water stains may just be in a wax coating, which you can remove, and then your task is easy.

Otherwise, you'll want to carefully sand with 320 sandpaper to remove the stains and to scuff up the surface elsewhere on the apron. Then you can apply a coat or two of oil-based varnish.
posted by ssg at 8:25 PM on October 30, 2015 [2 favorites]

The stains visible in the first picture are probably deeper than in the wax layer so I think ssg's advise is right. The trick will be, once you sand enough to get a uniform looking surface, to stain the surface to match the carved parts etc. A light walnut stain might work, but I would sand an area on the bottom edge in a similar way and test the color there. You may need to mix a few shades to get it right.
posted by beagle at 1:59 PM on October 31, 2015

My suggestion is to sand just enough to remove the water stains, but not through to the original stain. This doesn't always work, but if you don't need the final finish to be absolutely perfect, you can probably just sand enough to take off some of the top coat and then recoat the whole thing without having to do any stain matching (which is really hard to do well). In other words, it will be imperfect if you sand only part of it down to bare wood and re-stain and it will be imperfect if you sand the stains only in the topcoat. The latter is likely to be less noticeable and is definitely less work. YMMV depending on the original finish, of course.
posted by ssg at 4:28 PM on October 31, 2015