Justin Hawkins

I was walking in a nearby street one morning, it was hard rubbish collection day. The usual collection of terrible disposable furniture and electronics was present.

But then I found two tables, that seemed in quite good condition. Good enough to take a chance on, so I decided to drive my car back, pick them up and see if I could give them a new life.

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Both tables are structurally fine. The smaller one was very wobbly, but it is well made and the fittings just needed tightening.

Both are obviously well used, and the larger one has a polyurethane coating which is coming off in flakes.

I’ve decided to ignore the larger table for now, and restore its more beautiful (sorry larger table) younger brother.

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The legs have some routed inlaid detail, which I’m not exactly sure how I’m going to deal with at this point.

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The tabletop itself is super easy though, sand it until I’m happy.

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Easy, and very satisfying - but….

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This gouge is quite small, but it is annoying me. It’s perhaps 1mm deep and I don’t want to sand an entire mm of material off the tabletop.

I also don’t want to fill it, it’ll be very obvious if I do.

I decide to ignore it.

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More sanding. Noisy and messy but otherwise uneventful.

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I put it back together temporarily for a photo shoot and to get an idea of the contrast between the old stain and the raw wood. I think it’s going to look good.

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I pull the rest of the table apart and prepare to sand the more difficult parts.

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Four legs, four sides on each, three grits of sandpaper.

Plus tricky curved bits to do.

This takes the most time.

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It was satisfying in the end. As you can see, I decided to deal with the inlaid parts by completely ignoring them. The contrast is fun and obviously there is no wear on those parts of the wood.

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Ready for finishing.

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I’m using tung oil because it’s non-toxic (actually food safe, not that I’m going to be eating right off this) and doesn’t stink up the house so I can do this indoors.

It does smell, but it’s not unpleasant and pretty much confined to the laundry.

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I think 3 coats of tung oil are done at this point. Not pictured - oiling the tabletop.

The contrast between the original stain and the newly oiled finished actually looks really great.

I leave around 24 hours between coats where possible.

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I’m very happy with how it turned out.

Can you see the gouge? Me neither. It’s detectable with fingertips but otherwise it’s unnoticeable.

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