Table Project

I have a new project. I'm going to tackle furniture refinishing.

I bought this fold-up table at a Kiwanis charity auction/giant yard sale about a month ago. It probably qualifies as an antique, but I'm not sure how old and/or original the whole piece is. The sides flip up and are held in place via a bar of wood set on an axel (you can see this in the below photos). I pulled some very old hand-made nails from the bottom and some from the inside, and the hinges are definitely very old, but the table top seems like a completely different kind of wood from the rest of the piece. That may be due to poor care, though, evidenced by the near zero finish on the table top compared to the side-piece, numerous stains, the bottom half being very dirty and the paint from a half-assed paint job on the legs.

Right now my plan is to strip the paint off where I can, possibly bleach the stains from the top, sand everything down and apply an oil finish. If the stains prove too difficult to remove, I may bleach the whole top and re-stain it before oil-finishing it. Originally, I planned to remove the remaining folding-side and replace the hinges, but curiously, half of the hinges are sealed under the main table top. The top was hinged together and then screwed onto the base. I don't want to disassemble the piece so the old hinges will have to stay.

This is my first refinishing project, and as such I already bought a few things I shouldn't have (I was able to return the Tung Oil Finish - not what I wanted after all). I also still need to purchase some finer sand paper and I need to find wood bleach and actual Tung oil. Sears (of all places) seems to have these things, at least online. Home Depot and Lowe's were failures. I might even have to check a local proprietor.

Tomorrow:

- Buy some wood bleach and oil (if i can find them).

- Strip paint/finish off bottom half, weather permitting