Refinishing a MCM dining table -- sanding, staining and finishing advice/opinions/help welcome!


TimeWaitsForNoOne

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A pleasure to be here guys!  I fall somewhere between a DIY and a contractor that focuses on residential & commercial remodels / build outs.  Over 20 commercial spaces (cafes / beer gardens / coffee shops) built out, and over 30 sub-4 family homes renovated (ranging from light, to complete gut and rebuild). For the most part, all work was done on the construction site. My tools used tend to be in the Dewalt, Makita, and Bosch range. Have limited experience in a couple of projects which you can call true fine woodwork (using a real shop, Festool machinery, etc)

The wife just picked up a teak mid century modern dining table, designed by John van Koert, from the Profile series, fabricated by Drexel. The table seems like a solid build, and not a veneer finish. Used condition, with the table top surface in need of refinishing.  Luckily the chairs are good as is!  We noticed two issues that I'd like to tackle: 1, general refinishing of the table top, 2. white rings forming under warm/hot cups, plates etc -- which I'm hopeful is attributed to moisture getting trapped in between layers of products over the years.

Being a teak unit, I thought it was simply finished with teak oil, so made the first refinish attempt using (que the laughter) a Makita palm sander, with grits: 80, 120, 220, 400. As the sanding continued, some areas revealed the natural wood, others didn't quite get there (as it later turned out, I hadn't fully taken off the finish, as you could see the scratch marks from the 400 grit hand sanding in the light).  I decided to test-finish the unit with Starbrite teak oil, which upon drying confirmed that indeed the table was stained.

Now I'm ready for a round two, and to do it right(ish). Purchased a Bosch ROS (ROS65VC-6), with the Mirka Abranet discs (80, 150, 220), and am ready for action.

A couple of questions on the approach (and please correct any of my assumptions prior stated):

1. Only the top needs refinishing. Thoughts on refinishing all surfaces, or just the top?

2. In either case will need to match a stain -- any preferences on stain products?

3. Finishing:  Starbrite teak oil seems to be the preferred choice. Prior to it, I had always used Watco, which I now understand is an oil/varnish mix, as opposed to a pure oil base.

4. Any other considerations/items I should take into account?

Thanks guys!  Looking forward to finally starting on the woodworking journey.

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Hold on there. I'd be willing to bet that your teak my not be stained. Teak is one of those woods that changes color over time. Shannon Rodgers did a post (https://www.mcilvain.com/wood-color-changes-explained/) that covered teak as well as other woods. So before you ruin your table take that sucker outside on a couple bright day and get it a suntan. The best practice so you don't have some parts with 20 years of aging and some parts with 20 days is to take the entire top down evenly to the edges. For that i'd use a card scraper to take the old finish off to do the wood and then sand from there. Card scrapers can take very light amounts of material off or you can remove quite a bit with them. They work faster and more evenly than sand paper in my opinion the trick is learning how to sharpen them.

If that doesn't start to even out the colors you still don't have a stained table. Odds are the finish was tineted, think really really thinly colored paint. My advice strip it back find a person that does furniture finish via spray booth and hire him to do the finishing. If that's not an option trial and error on some hidden spot under neath.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Alright guys!  Time for a follow up.  And eventually for an aggregated and detailed post, that can help others in projects such as these.

Here's a link with a photo galleryhttps://photos.app.goo.gl/qnkkBDSAspkEjDtX6

One more project got added into the mix: a used teak outdoor set (which was previously poorly finished with I'm guessing Watco Danish Oil ?)

MCM dining top:  (total time, around 7 hours for refinish 1, refinish 2, and now the correct table top coating)

The first photos of the gallery show the starting point (refinish 2, after the original refinish) --

The table indeed turned out to use a teak veneer, with solid teak on two ends, and solid oak? teak? on the others.  As I very quickly (and luckily) discovered on the table leaves by completely destroying one, and then messing up another one.  The challenge was this: sand off the old finish and discoloration, without sanding out completely whatever is left of the veneer.  The trick is to be extremely careful around the edges -- as with those, one wrong tilt of the hand, and you lost your veneer (as is shown on one of the leaves in the photos).  Working with veneer essentially amounts to an approach of mistake mitigation.  Make sure not to fuck up anywhere, and you're good.

The grits I used were: 150 and 220 with Mirka Abranet Mesh - an excellent product.  Sands great.  Lasts a very long time.  Dust collection I am sure is magnificent due to the design (I did not use a hooked up vac).

The tool, Bosch ROS65VC-6, on the other hand, ended up being not so great at all.  The vibrations from the tool actually adjusted the dial speed, which constantly had to be reset.  Worse, the "hook and loop" system they use for actually holding the sanding pads in place DOES NOT WORK.  Well, they work for the first 5-10 minutes, and then you need a brand new foam pad which also then only lasts for 5-10 minutes (I bought 2 as a precaution, and had to go through all of them).  The sanding discs constantly slip off (or fly off). Which of course then leads to a TREMENDOUS amount of circles and swirlies that then need to be sanded out by hand. If you're going to spend $300 on a tool, get a Festool.  Night and day difference.

The finish process:

Having gone through the correct sanding (and then destroying) of two of the leaves, I had then decided to take the easy way out, lightly sand off the existing finish, and use a darker stain for the top to even out the former problems.  For our finish we wanted to try just a teak oil as well, instead of any kind of varnish, etc. We got the stain, and on the drive I kept thinking about how to approach the sanding to not get past the veneer.  Decided to give it one more shot starting with the 150 grit, as opposed to the 80 before, knowing what I knew then.  The gamble worked out on the final leaf, and so I then proceeded to do the table as well.  Seeing the final product, we both much preferred the natural variation in the wood, so decided to keep it (and not stain).

The finish:

For the finish, initially, we used Starbrite teak oil.  It looked incredible (albeit with certain muted areas as the oil dried up), and as Waldo88 from the lumberjocks forum explained, it turned out that teak oil is NOT a suitable finish for any surface that gets any kind of real use.  He mentioned a product called Behlen rockhard table top finish, which I then purchased in satin, and have now (30 minutes ago) applied using a paintbrush, going with the grain in the application. The plan is to apply 5-6 coats (with the 14 hour curing period in between), and a final 48 hour dry period before using the table.  Will update the finish photos once I have them.  And will report on how the Behlen product works over time. 

The correct steps: start with 150 grit, move to 220. Be extra careful around all the edges.  Finish sanding by hand with 220 pre-finish application (obviously). Total time estimate: 2 hours sanding, 30 min finish hand sanding, and then 20 minutes per coat.

Outdoor Teak Patio Set: (total time: around 30 hours. power wash, sand, sand, sand, Starbrite teak cleaner, Starbrite teak brightener, Starbrite teak oil)

This was a teak set of 6 chairs, and a table, which we purchased for $500 off craigslist.  The former finish, unfortunately, was either a wrong product, or an incorrect application, which led to a tremendous amount of work.  Here goes:

First step, was power washing each chair.  I was hopeful that this would take out a step or two in the sanding process, but in all honesty, probably didn't really save any time.  If I was re-doing the project, I would power wash ONLY the hard-to-reach areas by the orbital sander tool.

Second step:  Sanding. Sanding. Sanding.  80, 150, 220 grits.  80 was the workhorse.  The others were just for smoothing out.

Third steps:  (first time) using the Starbrite products.  In all honesty, once sanded, neither the cleaner nor the brightener really did much of anything at all.   All directions were followed.  All surfaces were scrubbed and agitated, etc.  Not really worth the time. 

Very important to use a good quality sander.  Iinitially I used a palm sander, which took something like 5x as long as the Bosch RSO one.  Now if only the sanding pads actually held the way they were supposed to, and I had the RSO from the start, this project would have taken at least 5 hours less to complete.  Moral of the story, as always:  get the correct and high quality tools.

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Alright! So a follow up to the follow up.

This Behlen Rock Hard Table Top Finish varnish is living hell to apply.  Weather has been extremely humid, so the drying time is getting extended.  Getting small bubbles and the brush strokes each time (foam brush yields better results, but can still see "the track"). Had by far the best results with a microfiber rag for wipe on.

So here's the question: How do you finish the product off after the final 320 sand?  Wax? Mineral Oil?

Or should I just go to super fine sand grits like 600, 800, 1000, 1500 and not bother with any of the wax?

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