You're going to get those light scratches, and they will be particularly noticeable if you're sighting the horizontal surfaces when the sun is low on the horizon. Unless you absolutely don't touch the table, they're going to happen.

You most likely have a lacquer topcoat on the tabletops and if you get deeper scratches you can take # 0000 Steel Wool and going with the grain, work the table top to knock them down. Then apply a coat of paste wax afterwards. Wooling down a top is not particularly hard, but you have to take care to keep pressure even, do the entire surface, and not swing your arm in arcs as you do it...stay right perfectly with the grain of the wood.

I'd suggest you just use the table and enjoy it. From time to time paste wax the top and buff it well.

Duane COllie

Thanks Duane. As always, you are the best and can be counted on for great information.

If you take steel wool to your brand new table top you may very well cause more harm than you are seeing.
Likely the table has a sprayed coat of laquer on it and it is very VERY easy to cut through that with OOOO steel wool.
Unless you have has some experience with what steel wool does to laquer...I would go with Duane's suggestion to enjoy the developing patina on your table.
Linda C

Thank you all. I don't have ANY experience with steel wool and wood, so I'm going to go with enjoying "the developing patina".

I really have the same question as gawl. I've been searching for information on using paste wax on my new dining table, which is barely scratched, not enough to use steel wool, but I'd like to protect it before it gets any worse. It probably has that light lacquer coat mentioned above, as well. So my question: is plain old Johnson paste wax all I need to protect it further and absorb any further scratches? Otherwise, I'll have a glass top cut to fit it. Thanks.

You would have to do an awful lot of rubbing with 4/0 steel wool before you rub through the finish. For most dining tables with a rubbed finish that is the final step in the finishing process.

That being said, if you rub it with steel wool, the next time someone rubs across the scratch line with a button from a shirt cuff, a watch, slides an eating utensil etc. it will leave a slight scratch and you are back to where you started. You can't get the steel wool out every time that happens, or you will rub through the finish eventually.

If you just live with these scratches for a while, they will eventually all blend together and be unnoticeable.