I have an old Ethan Allen dining room table with a couple leaves. It has a pretty dark finish with a thick coat of varnish on top. It's also got various scratches, water stains, etc. What is the best way to refinish the top? As for revarnishing, I've seen those varnish kits that have you just pour the varnish on top and let it dry, should I consider those?
How to refinish a tabletop
furniture
Related Solutions
Building the seat is easy, anyone with a reasonably complete tool set and any aptitude for construction could bang those together. The hardware, on the other hand, is another story. The hardware shown is a specialty item because of both its particular functionality and the rather extreme torsional load it has to deal with. The next concern is attaching the unit to the wall. Your wall's substructure might not be adequate, and if your seat is configured like the picture it almost certainly won't have studs where you need them (the middle would require 3 or 4 studs stacked together to catch both brackets). You may need to cut open the wall and beef up the substructure, or design your seat so it bears some of the load down into the floor thusly:
This layout could be built with dimensional stock and off the shelf hardware (lags, carriage bolts, etc.) but I have to admit it lacks the elegance of the floating bench.
According to the instructions, it appears that there are six washers and nuts holding it together. If you only used four, that might be a problem. ;)
I would go back over the piece, checking the tightness of the nuts. Side-to-side motion is likely a problem with the nuts, not the legs.
Related Topic
- How to connect furniture without cam locks
- How to repair hole that the chair leg screws into
- Wood – How to refinish a rubberwood and veneer coffee table top
- How to reduce chair squeak
- How to securely hang a hammock on trailer framing
- Furniture – How to Join a Vertical and Horizontal Pole
- How to support column for the cat climbing tree
Best Answer
your question could require a small book to answer. Depending on how bad the damage is, how badly the base wood is discolored would make a difference in what methods you may need to use to bring your table back to its former charm. Of course the total rehab would involve sanding the entire piece to bare wood and start from scratch. (see some of my previous answers on wood refinishing) If you simply want to do a varnish make over, you could use denatured alcohol to liquefy the existing varnish and remove/redistribute it. This can be fairly successful. Homer Formby made a mint selling kits that did just that. I have to say however, varnish is very old school and is rarely used today. It has tenancies to yellow, water spot easily and change color if a hot item is placed on it. Most high end furniture has a lacquer or urethane finish today. Lacquer is very hard to apply without good spray equipment is not an easy DIY project without some experience with that product. Urethane is easy to work with, comes in many finishes, satin to high gloss and can have color included. A fantastic durable finish can be created with several skillfully applied coats of urethane. Of course, if you chose to use urethane, all the old varnish must be removed and you would want to repair the wood base, restain or spot stain before refinishing with urethane or lacquer. The pour and forget kits you referred to are very gimmicky and rarely give good results. There is no substitute for good craftsmanship, and if something sounds too good to be true, it normally is. The only pour and leave product I have ever used with success is casting resin. This is actually a fiber glass epoxy resin that I have used on some commercial bars.