Can a Furniture PRO Save THIS tabletop? - Thomas Johnson Antique Furniture Restoration

I'm Tom Johnson Thomas Johnson antique furniture restoration and Gorham Maine this is a very nice table it's a the largest of a set of nesting tables it's not an antique but it's very well made it's a good table it's all solid mahogany and the top is a single piece of mahogany this top has seen a lot of use I mean it's got the Finish has started to kind of leather you know age a little bit dry out it's got Rings some scratches lots of indentations just in general it does not look great now you could make a case for refinishing this top but it's part of a set uh the color and the variations in color are great so I mean let's uh let's try to save the existing finish the first step always is to clean it uh regardless of what you're going to do even if you're going to refinish it you should clean it no doubt that this top has a lot of furniture polish and stuff like that on it I like using this crud cutter it's a degreaser I'll uh form a rag into a pad and put the crud cutter directly on the pad not the table it's getting a little cleaner and I'm going to keep patting this one section at a time until this rag starts to come up clean and it's uh it's getting there okay this morning I cleaned it again I'm satisfied I've got everything off of here and uh I think now I want to smooth this top up a bit maybe I'll try a gray Scotch Brite pad I couldn't sand this but I thought uh it might be a little bit better I'm going to try this Scotch Brite pad these are gray ultra fine pads I can't tell if that's on the surface or there it goes okay now I'm gonna wipe this off with the Mohawk wax wash remover I like these Scott rags in a box the wax wash remover is a proprietary blend of solvents that's really good at removing contaminants or in this case suspected contaminants folder rag just take one swipe turn the rag make one swipe you want to remove whatever might be on the surface but you don't want to spread it around when it's wet with the solvent it looks like it's trying to fish eye I'm just going to wipe it off again same way but with a dry rag okay I'm just about ready to polish this there's a like a gouge or a bad scratch here I might put a little color on it's not deep enough to fill I have some other light spots here all these spots disappeared when it was wet especially these I'm only going to put stain on two of the spots I'm going to use uh the Mohawk Ultra stain it's a solvent based dye stain it works well with lacquers and any type of finish I'm going to thin it out for this application this little jar I want to see if these other areas you know darken back up to their natural color when I polish it and if they don't then I'll put some stain on them okay I'm gonna try uh patting this first coat of padding I'm going to use a this lubric site padding lacquer I've had really good luck with this foreign foreign and I really want to work these areas where the Finish was a little bit on the Rough Side I want to build up the finish on these edges all right not bad so far I got a ways to go it's a take a little while to build up in those spots that were that had a little bit more compromised finish uh I'm gonna let this dry I'm going to eat lunch run some errands and then put another coat on it today okay this is dried for three hours and there's definitely those spots and other spots need a little stain before I Pat it again sometimes if I'm having trouble with the brush laying down the stain these uh Mohawk brush tip markers work really well also they do have a tendency to dry out and I have to dip them in lack of retarder to reactivate them foreign try patting it again foreign has worked really well at the a lot of those scruffy areas are now beginning to fill in and smooth out a bit and it's just looking more consistent I'll let this dry overnight and uh tomorrow probably sand it a little and then Pat it again okay all right looks good I'm gonna sand it this time and then polish on another coat I think one of the things everybody struggles with is working on a tabletop you've got it up on a bench you're looking at it this way that way you're just seeing all the defects that's a little bothersome it's important to set it down on the ground and see it from the natural position and even in an area where there's not so much light we're not trying to correct all the defects here just trying to get a good surface but it's tough when you're looking at them I'm going to sand with uh 800 free cut paper and a block I keep a Scotch Brite pad my other hand and get away those little mitts that are sticking to the paper when the paper's clogging up so easily it's good to keep brushing it off like every two strokes with sandpaper I'm brushing It Off okay I'm done sanding I'll uh I'll go over it now with the new uh piece of Scotch Brite pad just going after some shiny spots and around the edges now I'll wipe the surface off with the Mohawk wax wash same way as I did before at this point I'm not worried about contamination but this stuff just really leaves the surface really right for the next coat foreign foreign yeah it looks good okay the next step is I'm going to go over this with steel wool and uh the feed and wax polish I'll use a four knot steel wool and I'll use this uh Howard's feed and wax beeswax and orange oil polish foreign I hope that you can see that I'm keeping a very flat hand I'm doing this slowly and deliberately one quarter at a time counting my Strokes I really want the top to be even so I'll do this quarter this quarter and then I'll go back and go the whole length foreign well there you go a very nice mahogany nesting table not an antique this is the largest of the Set uh absolutely gorgeous mahogany extremely sturdy table for a nesting table I'd like to see the rest of the set but uh you know the top just had a lot of wear and tear and uh just wanted to clean it pat it out a little bit get some finish on it and wax it up it looks great but you really don't want to refinish something like this if you can help it because you have a whole set of tables not to mention the rest of the table I think it looks pretty good I've got two hours in this job and these are the materials that I used if you like my video please like And subscribe and feel free to post it on your other favorite platforms like Facebook Reddit what have you I'd really appreciate it

Channel: Thomas Johnson Antique Furniture Restoration

Views: 90,624

Keywords: Thomas, Johnson, Antique, Furniture, Restoration, Gorham, Maine, Southern, ME, Greater, Portland, Boston, MA, Newton, Mass

Id: sDd1C3fNHlY

Length: 17min 53sec (1073 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 09 2022