Repurposing Carpenters Table - Advice needed

[svselva]

Hi All,

I have a carpenters table which I want to repurpose as a living room table. Note, I have zero workworking skills and this is my first venture.

Before I started I wanted to get some pointer and feedback on my process.

1. Dust table and clean with soapy water.
2. Fix some split woods etc.. with Aquahere (spelling?)
3. Sand using something like a Bosch Palm Sander - any suggestions on what sort of grade of paper to use or should I hand sand?
4. Apply varnish - not sure what finish I'm going to go with, definately not something too dark.

Thank you.

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[Horsecroft88]

Hi Svselva

An interesting project you have there and good for you for wanting to work on it. Before I try and give you some ideas, can I perhaps start by a few questions. First off, when you saying living room table, would I be correct in my thinking you don't mean as a dining table but rather perhaps as a display table/side table etc ? I only ask as if for dinning table it could make things interesting given the lower midle section plus deep side rails and bottom rails/stringers.

Second question is I don't suppose you know what it is made from, i.e. pine (of possible various types, oregan, kauri or ?) or hardwood ? I would suspect the top is likely to be hardwood (eg Tas Oak ??) while the legs and side rails perhaps pine ??

Thirdly, were you planning on leaving the vice attached or are you planning on removing it. I think if mine I possibly would consider removing it, but you might like it.

In respect of your proposed method, basically it sounds ok.

1. yes do clean it.

2. in terms of fixing splits, while aquadere is ok, its use in my view is pretty limited. Sellys do make a more specialised wood working glue (available at Mitre 10, Bunnings etc), but there are a range of other more high strength specialised glues as well as the old fashing hide glues. In terms of splits though, unless you are going to clamp the sections together I am not sure that glueing them will do anything. The alternative if the splits are not structural (that is falling apart) is to fill with some sort of epoxy filler or even wood filler/putty etc. Have a talk with your hardware suppliers as to what might be best.

3. Sanding the surface back is likely to be needed and for a piece such as this which has seen probably a lot of projects on it, it will have plenty of knocks, cuts, scratches, dents, staining etc. That is obviously the charm of this, so my advice here would be to try to not sand all of this back to make it look new. In terms of how to sand, probably a hand sander as suggested plus localised sanding should work fine. I would assume you probably would need a coarse, medium and fine papers for your Bosch sander and/or if by hand say anything from 120 up to 400 grade papers.

4. In terms of finish, and how this will affect the look of your table, there are range of choices. Some will have a stronger affect on the timber than others. Don't confine your choices just to varnish (which I assume you mean Polyurathane).

Personally I hate poly and won't use it on any timber. Ditto 2 pack finishes. To me they are so plastic. Again how dark the timber may go depends on the timber itself, the age of the piece, how much previous use it has had and also how hard you sand it back. For internal furniture though you certainly should aim I think to achieve something that feels nice to touch, afterall you don't want splinters etc.

In terms of what I would recommend, products such as organoil, shellac, linseed or Danish oils all could give you a nice feel/look to the table especially if you were to wax it thereafter. Tung oil also could be a good choice for it. If you are unsure of which finish to use, you could always try doing a test finish on a less visible section of the table or similar type of timber to see how it changes the colour of the timber.

Hope that helps a little and look forward to seeing pictures as to how it comes up.

[Tailsnz]

sounds like a plan and you cant do to much damage to it. remember when sanding it is cheaper and quicker in the long run to sand the sequence. ie start with 80 grit, move to 100, 120, 180 and if your really keen 220. but to be honest if you want to leave a little of the original character in this piece I wouldn't bother going above 180. you start with 80 which will quickly cut the surface back and then the next grits are simply to remove the cut marks of the previous grits. trying to start to far up the sequence will use a lot of paper and elbow grease.

[Master Splinter]

Marine epoxy* for filling any cracks, in your choice of clear or tinted, as PVA can be horrible to try to sand once it's more than a narrow glueline. I find that sawdust mixed with epoxy to fill larger cracks tends to look yuk - you know that horrible pinkish plastic that's used for hearing aids and other medical plastic parts? Yeah, it looks like that, except for wood, not skin.

Iron oxides make good tinters for epoxy and come in nice brown-black-red-ochre colours. Feast Watson woodstains are good for a more translucent finish. Black is always a good colour to use.

And see some of the threads about sanding an oil finish to 2000 grit for a really nice finish.


*You won't find this at Bunnies. They'll try to sell you araldite for $100 for a half kilo. Half that will get you double the amount of marine epoxy from a boatbuilders.