I'm a refugee from the former Wood Magazine forums and need some advice on fixing a finish. 

 

First the story....

 

My niece and her husband asked me to build a table for them. They saw one in a hotel and took some photos of it.

 

The table is made with 3" x 3" pieces of wood glued together into panels 15" wide. There are 2 legs made with these panels 38" high and 78" apart. Each leg is mitered to make a 96 degree angle from each side and the panels attached to them meet at a midpoint 2 1/2" higher than the legs. I made wedges to fit on either side of the pinical to allow a panel 15" wide and 78" long to fit flat upon the top, making it look like the top is floating evenly on the pinical. I made the table out of Ash. 

 

I got all the parts made, mitered and glued together and my wife finished the parts according to the way her neice wanted it. I then put 4 coats of water based poly on the bottom of the top, and the top of the pieces forming the pinical as I would have a hard time getting to these areas in the final assembly. 

 

Last Wednesday I put glue on the wedges that the top will sit upon and on the underside of the top where they meet the wedges and lifted the top (did I mention that these panels are heavy!). I'm thinking the top is 70 to 80 lbs. Well, it slipped out of my hands and crashed upon the base and every joint in the mitered areas, that were enforced with biscuits tore apart and collapsed to the floor. The biscuits broke apart tearing pieces of wood out with them . 

 

After standing there and not believing what I had done, I started gluing it back together. I've had to repair some of the miters and that means sanding through the poly and finish. So here is the question. 

 

Can I restain the sanded areas and cover them with poly to fix the finish, or would it be better to sand it all off and start over? Has anyone else encountered this issue? Having to fix a poly finish? 

 

best regards,

 

Ron

welcome Ron...

@kmealy (another refugee) would be a good one to get the attention on this...

Keith and others will have better advice on this: but I fear you will be in the start over mode on the finish repair. I wouldn't recommend sanding it off, however. Use a stripper to remove as much as possible. BTW, welcome to the forums.

Edited October 7, 20169 yr by Fred W. Hargis, Jr

Ron, you have nothing to lose at this point, sand through the poly, re-stain, and coat with your finish just to see what it looks like. Do this at one area, and if you are satisfied with the results then proceed to the rest of the fix.

If you are not happy with your test result, then strip it down and start from scratch with your finish.

You do have one thing going for ya, where the spot re-finishing just may work, your project is fresh, so age and patina have not settled into the project, so you do not have to worry about color matching. So your spot fixes may very well work out just fine, it should blend in well.

But if the spot fixes do not work, all is not lost, just a little time.

Images are always a plus when asking questions like this so we can see what you see.

I have to admit that I gave a gasp when I read your post.  What an unfortunate turn of events.  I have to agree with John.  Continue on and try to salvage it.  You may burn up a few hours but if it works, you save many. Good luck.

WOW~!!  I would be concerned that a patch work of fixes would  stand out.  The eye can adjust to one or two, but several  would tell the brain that the areas of  distinct coloration were a pattern and  you'd see it.

 

Sorry that I missed this earlier.

 

I am not sure what you mean by a pinical (could be a misspelling or my ignorance).

 

While it might be possible to fix the stained and finished areas, it doesn't always work and it won't be easy by just sanding, staining, and apply new coats of finish.  As stated above, it might be worth a try, but it may not work and you may have to back up and strip and refinish the damaged areas.  The problem is you may not get all the stain and finish off and that can affect the re-application or you can have a blending problem at the boundaries.

Well, I thought that I would come back and let you all know how I did with fixing the finish on the table. I first sanded the areas with 400 grit sandpaper and feathered the edge of the water based poly. Then I stained the areas that I had sanded through the finish to make them look like the rest of the table. Then I applied 2 coats of the water based poly on the areas, letting them dry after each coat. Then I put two more coats on the complete area and it worked. You couldn't even see that there was a difference in the areas. 

 

Ron

Nice save Ron, thanks for the follow up,

Cal

Glad to hear that worked out.

Ron, great job on the perseverance! All you can do is try the fix sometimes, and if it works it works, and it worked!

I love these challenges, when they happen to me I get frustrated at first, but sometimes much of the fun is figuring it out, and when it turns successful, then it's just grand! Way to go sir!

Hello Everyone, 

 

I thought that I would show you the table that collapsed on me. I have never made a table this thick before, the boards are 3 iches thick. I tried first just to use biscuts and glue and that didn't hold. So I put a lot of screws in it and plugged them with dowels made from some of the scrap. 

 

That is very unique and very good looking. My goodness, it must weigh a ton....give or take. But, those thick boards are gorgeous.

Great job on the repair.

I can see why it broke when you dropped it. Wow, that's a "team lift" piece if there ever was one!

Looks great Ron.  Getting it delivered is the hard/heavy part.

Edited March 25, 20179 yr by HandyDan