Thrift Store Rescue #13 | Furniture Restoration | Refinishing A Thrift Store Norwegian Teak Table

it's an unseasonable cold day in Minneapolis it's a good day to go thrifting on today's trip to the thrift store I found this Norwegian teak table it was in rough shape but at five dollars the price was right so I took it home at the top had the most damage by far and the rest of it was in okay condition the legs on this table are solid teak and the rest of it is a teak veneer except for the very thin edge banding that goes around the edge of the top that would be solid teak I used a few different methods to deal with the damage on the top when I started with a paint stripper to remove as much of the old finish as I could or whatever was left of it I applied a nice thick coat and this is supposed to work in 15 minutes so I let it sit for about 15-20 minutes then I removed it with a scraper the first application did a pretty good job but there was still some finish left so I applied a second coat and once I scraped that off I went over it with some mineral spirits and fine steel wool to clean up any remaining residue here's how it looked after it dried from the stripping process and it still looks pretty bad those gray areas I think those are where the finish was missing so they kind of have a weathered appearance and the darker areas are where there was still finish on it before I stripped it off and the stripper did a pretty good job but there was still some finish left on the edge and you can see it in this shot it's that shiny area on the edge where the Sun is reflecting off of the finish so to remove that remaining finish I just got out a utility knife blade and scraped it off and while I was scraping I decided to get out the big card scraper and see if that could help to clean it up even further after scraping I wet the top down with some mineral spirits and when you wet it down it helps to show how it will look if you put clear finish on it and at this point it looked a lot better than it did when I started but I could still see some blotchiness and some dark spots so I wanted to try something else to try to get those out so at that point I decided to try some sanding and see if that would help and I started with some 100 grit sandpaper [Music] here I'm wetting it down after the sanding to see how it's coming along and it does look a lot better but there were still some dark spots and blotchiness and since the top had a veneer on it I didn't want to do any more sanding because I didn't want to risk going through the veneer so I decided to try some oxalic acid to get the dark spots out the oxalic acid that I use comes in powder form and I just mix it with some warm water and just wipe it on and let it sit I just let it sit as long as it takes for the water to dry here's how it looked after the oxalic acid had done its thing and it looked a lot better I was happy with it at this point so I decided to move on to strip the finish off the legs I decided just to use the scraper and it worked great it was fast and easy and there was no stripper goop to clean up or sanding dust [Laughter] [Music] I also use the scraper on the sides of the on these grooves I just used some sandpaper and I just roughed them up I didn't try to remove the finish because the finish was in good shape and it would look fine if I just went over it with the new finish next I had to do a little more sanding on the top since I had used the oxalic acid on it that had raised the grain a little bit so I just needed to clean that up and I used 120 grit to start and went up to 220 grit and I always try to keep the sander moving but not too fast and just put gentle pressure on it you don't need to apply a lot of pressure otherwise you'll likely leave swirl marks in the top and I also avoided the edges because it's really easy to sand through the veneer on the edge so I usually go back later and sand those by hand and the legs I just sand it by hand once all the sanding was done I wanted to check and see how it would look with finish on it before I put the actual finish on so here I'm just wetting it down with some alcohol and it looked really good and then I was ready to put on the final finish and I'm not using any stain on this table it really didn't need it the wood had plenty of good color on its own so I'm just putting on a clear satin white bond oil polyurethane and I like to just pour a little bit into a container and take a piece of an old cotton rag usually a t-shirt and just cut a little piece and fold it up and fold it up neatly and use that to wipe it on and I just put on a really thin coat it's almost like wiping water onto the top I find this a lot easier than using a brush you don't get any brush marks and it's a also a thinner finish which I feel usually looks better unless you're going for maximum durability then you probably want to put on a thicker finish and I usually put on about three or four coats of the white bond finish once the finish had tried I could put the legs back on yeah pretty cold and here it is all done I think it looks a lot better than it did when I started thanks for watching you

Channel: Dashner Design & Restoration

Views: 1,955,205

Rating: 4.864728 out of 5

Keywords: thrifting, diy, restoration, furniture refinishing, vintage, furniture makeover, woodworking

Id: sGYggaY2oDU

Length: 12min 56sec (776 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 17 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/icomeforthereaper]

Isn't it good Norwegian wood?

[u/ShinyDisc0Balls]

You should post this on /r/artisanvideos. They'd love this!

[u/TrickIntroduction]

Did not know Norway was tropical.