DIYbanter - View Single Post - Refinishing tips for a 70-year-old mahogany dining room set

Mike Marlow[_2_]

On 12/17/2012 9:24 AM, wrote:
I was just given the go-head to refinish my wife's parent's old
dining room set. It was purchased in 1940 (my wife still has the
receipt!) and it is in dire need of refinishing. There are 70 years
worth of fingerprints all over the backs of the chairs and there are
several nice gouges in the top of the buffet. The finish on the top
of the backs of chairs is really coming off, too, and you can see
different colored wood starting to show up on all four of the
chairs. Of course, there are a lot of scratches on the table top
from cats and kids and whatever over the years. And you can see all
the cracks and discoloration of the old varnish--at least I think it
is varnish. That is the first question: how do I figure out what
they used to
finish the dining set? Varnish, shellac, what else would they have
used seventy years ago? Next question is what should I use to finish it
again? I assume I
would want to use the same thing. I certainly don't want to use any
sort of poly. The chairs are getting a little wobbly but I don't think
they are
anywhere near the point of having to take them apart. Would it be
worth it to look into that glue that is applied using a needle; the
kind of needle like a doctor uses? It seems like these can get into
really small places, obviously, but I don't know if the stuff works.

One last thing: how do I get my wife to understand that the entire
set is going to be much, much lighter than it is now? She was born
20 years after this set was purchased, so she has only known it to
be on the dark side. I am sure she is going to scream at first. I
guess the only thing I can say is wait another 70 years and it will
be just as dark as it is now, except she will be 120+ years old by
then and the last thing she will be thinking about is what the set
looked like in 2012. Thanks!

Martin Eastburn wrote:
If the table and chairs are treasured at all - by all means get the
set professionally stripped. There are companies that do that for a
living and identifying a surface is easy for them.

I'd get bids to do the whole thing. e.g. strip and they or another
shop professionally stain and finish.

Something that is remembered is worth the option. If it goes bad on
you because of fish-eye or dust or cold or to hot - so many things
can cause the family the want to just junk it at a later date.

Martin

Well - I disagree with what Martin and some others have said. I do not
believe it is beyond the reach of a beginner to take on a project like this.
It may not come out perfect and 10 years later you may even wish you had
done things differently based on what you know at that time, but that all by
itself should not be reason not to try now.

My bigger concern is the lack of responses from you to the posts that have
addressed your original post. There have been enough things said to you
that should have seen you asking more questions, or something. You asked a
lot of questions and made a lot of statements in your original post which
were either questioned or commented on by people here, but I haven't seen
anything back from you in response to those.

Maybe you are having second thoughts on this project? Not happy with the
responses you saw here?

--

-Mike-