My wife left an oil candle on our cherished Berhardt dining table. Then
someone (one of the kids, her, the wind, who knows) turned the candle
over and some of the oil leaked out and stayed on the table for weeks
before we noticed. It removed all the finish and now there's a 5 inch
diameter spot of almost bare wood.

In short, the finish is ruined where the oil pooled.

I e-mailed Berhardt for a suggestion on what to do. I suspect they
thought I was a competitor looking for their "secret" finishing formula
-- let's just say I got no response.

So what should I do? Remove the finish on the whole table and start
over or is there something simplier I can do.

The wood is cherry (I'm pretty sure). The finish looks like some kind
of lacquer but I'm not sure.

References:
http://www.bernhardt.com/
http://www.bernhardt.com/live/index.htm (This is it: round dining
table, Embassy Row.)

Never Enough Money says...

My wife left an oil candle on our cherished Berhardt dining table. Then
someone (one of the kids, her, the wind, who knows) turned the candle
over and some of the oil leaked out and stayed on the table for weeks
before we noticed. It removed all the finish and now there's a 5 inch
diameter spot of almost bare wood.

In short, the finish is ruined where the oil pooled.

I e-mailed Berhardt for a suggestion on what to do. I suspect they
thought I was a competitor looking for their "secret" finishing formula
-- let's just say I got no response.

So what should I do? Remove the finish on the whole table and start
over or is there something simplier I can do.

The wood is cherry (I'm pretty sure). The finish looks like some kind
of lacquer but I'm not sure.

References:
http://www.bernhardt.com/
http://www.bernhardt.com/live/index.htm (This is it: round dining
table, Embassy Row.)

Just my amateur observations: If it is stained and that is damaged, it
will be difficult to repair to 100% satisfaction. Even if it isn't
stained, it will have a glaze, and I'll defer to the experts here if any
decide to chime in, but my guess is that your chance of being able to
make a repair undetectable by trying to match the glaze is arbitrarily
close to zero. If you don't require perfection, you could tint your
lacquer and do the best you can. It may be just about as easy to strip
the rest of the top and do it over. At least that way the top would be
consistent, even if it didn't perfectly match the rest of the table. If
you did that, it would be a good excuse to add a few coats of varnish so
that it will be impervious to future accidents.

Maybe www.refinishwizard.com has something to help.

On 30 May 2005 19:31:24 -0700, "Never Enough Money"
wrote:

My wife left an oil candle on our cherished Berhardt dining table. Then
someone (one of the kids, her, the wind, who knows) turned the candle
over and some of the oil leaked out and stayed on the table for weeks
before we noticed. It removed all the finish and now there's a 5 inch
diameter spot of almost bare wood.

In short, the finish is ruined where the oil pooled.

I e-mailed Berhardt for a suggestion on what to do. I suspect they
thought I was a competitor looking for their "secret" finishing formula
-- let's just say I got no response.

So what should I do? Remove the finish on the whole table and start
over or is there something simplier I can do.

The wood is cherry (I'm pretty sure). The finish looks like some kind
of lacquer but I'm not sure.

References:
http://www.bernhardt.com/
http://www.bernhardt.com/live/index.htm (This is it: round dining
table, Embassy Row.)

Well I posted my question there and got an e-mail that a reply was
posted. However, for the umpteenth time their site is down.

WHERE???

On 1 Jun 2005 17:12:53 -0700, "Never Enough Money"
wrote:

Well I posted my question there and got an e-mail that a reply was
posted. However, for the umpteenth time their site is down.

I see it.

http://www.refinishwizard.com/phpbb/viewforum.php?f=1