Sue, I have a rule not to eat at the computer anymore, just can't seem to control myself. Sharon aka Scotty hmmm...maybe my unexplained weight gain this winter because most all of my eating is done in front of the computer, or else the TV. Even when BF is down on the weekends, we always sit in the living room and the TV is usually on though sometimes muted. My GW seed 'stuff' is all over the dining table and I have been putting off attending to it all. I lost/misplaces a prized pack of seeds I had told some I would share, and I fear going through the rubble on the table for fear I won't find them there....sigh Sue...eating as she types

if your settings are correct, then it's probably something with your browser, junk, or security settings (shrugs)

In a word, no. Or more precisely, probably no. Poly does not adhere well to other things. I can relate my annual "table from Hell" circa 2004. The owner wanted to make her table "a little more glossy" so applied poly over a brand new table. (Never mind that a few minutes of buffing by hand would have accomplished the same thing.) When I got there, nearly 1/4 of the table top had finish peeled off. The rest I stripped off with extreme difficulty. There's a 99% chance that the finish is lacquer unless it's been poly-ed by some DIY type. So, I see two good options for you: - Clean thoroughly, scuff sand (just enough to dull the finish), and brush on a coat or two of brushing lacquer (Watco and Deft are two commonly available brands). - Strip the finish using a chemical stripper, then proceed with staining and applying a finish of choice (you could successfully use poly here). If you are not an experienced varnisher, a wipe on varnish, like Arm-R-Seal wiping polyurethane would be a commonly available choice. Sanding down the the color (whatever that is) is also a bad idea. * It's very difficult to sand down evenly. * It's very difficult to remove all the finish by sanding, you might not see it until you try to stain it. * You stand a real risk of sanding through a veneered top Finally, "poly" is not the be-all and end-all of finishes. This is one of the things I relay in my finishing classes and posts on forums like this. It's cheap, hogs all the shelf space, and is abrasion resistant. That's about all the good qualities. The bad qualities are it ambers significantly, has poor adhesion, can be difficult to apply smoothly unless you know how to do it, has low UV resistance, and is nearly impossible to repair.

Our intention was to get the questions answered for those who posted yesterday & today...so they don't roll off in a matter of hours. Since we don't know what's going on, we thought this might be a temporary solution until we heard more. If it becomes a long drawn out process, then, yes, we need to move on. However, posting about a finished kitchen or just to mention a new product isn't critical right now...we want to be able to respond to those who are in the middle of problems. If the threads come and go too quickly, then we can't help. I did notice, though, that we're up to Page 5. Whether that means we're rebuilding the pages, I don't know. But it's not just a matter of missing pages, I think it's a matter of missing threads that just happened to reduce the # of pages down to 4 (and now 5). Several of us have noticed that threads that should be in the first 4 pages are missing and there are gaps of hours b/w posts...which we all know is extremely rare on this forum. So, no, this is not a long-term solution, it's a very temporary stop-gap measure to help those who need it most right now. I'd say if we don't hear more positive info by this time tomorrow or know for sure that nothing further is being lost, then we should resume "business as usual".