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fireweed22

Old dining table, refinish, leave as is, or?

fireweed22
9 years ago

Bought my first antique today, is a well used (antiqued!) dining room table supposedly from the 20's, from Quebec. Seller figured pine. It's not oak or maple or anything else I can tell, has some knots and relatively light compared to a hardwood.

It's a butterfly table, with slide out ends. They lift right out so not hinged, just the main table top is hinged to allow raising for the slide out access.

The "wings" (?) are darker and have much less dents/scratches.

The main table is as mentioned well used.

It is possible to sand them both down far enough to get them the same? Or.... is it a total can of worms- now the legs etc etc will need the same love? And matching the stain for old/new.

I kind of like it as is but it would be nice if the whole top was consistent.

Thanks for any thoughts! I don't want to ruin it.

Comment (1)

  • scafool
    9 years ago

    I would likely leave it as is and I use table cloths anyhow.

    However if it bothers you, I think the first thing I would suggest is cleaning it to see if some of the difference is simply dirt. If it was waxed sometimes the wax will yellow over time.
    Sometimes colour differences are just from sun bleaching.
    If the leafs were seldom used and the top faded in the light you might be able to get them closer looking by using a coloured wax or similar finish on the table top.

    I could tell you about how to do partial finish removal with solvents to balance colours but the methods are too risky to explain over the internet.

    Unless it is a very special piece of furniture don't worry too much about things like "patina" because it is far more important to have a usable piece of furniture that pleases you.
    Besides, a lot of people confuse dirt with patina and if you can simply wash it off with a soapy rag then it is dirt, not patina.

    Edit:
    I almost forgot, if it is pine there is a chance the finish is oil. You might have heard it called Danish oil or something similar but it is really just double boiled linseed oil. The same thing that used to be used as the base for oil paints.
    The point is that with an oil finish you can retouch it by wiping a thin layer on.
    Different brands of it have slightly different additives like drying accelerators and colour added. If you go to a paint store they usually carry oil finish in small cans of different shades or tints so you should be able to colour match easily, wiping on a thin coat and letting it dry before wiping on another coat makes it very controllable.
    The more coats you put on the darker the tint will seem.

    This post was edited by scafool on Mon, Aug 25, 14 at 1:44