What is furniture finished with now a days?

[Pilchard]

I know some of our suff was done with shellac, alcohol took it all off... 800 buck coffee table not worth it's weight in scrap pine. This was before I worked out I could do stuff myself, learnt how to French polish well the amount of times I cut back and re did that table. To tell you the truth about annually with my kids wear and tear and I found out the hard way they don't like grog.

mum has just baught a lot of pre fabish stuff, and to tell you the truth the workmanship is shocking, obviously they don't know how to use a sander... It was expensive furniture done in tas oak. Pretty timber but shonkily put together and not finished we'll. imagine a table top of 45 mm slats butted well and then at one side 20 and 15 mm slats used to give it the right width. She als got a table and entertainment unit of the same. 8k later I'm not game enough to point out the flaws.

so the question is what would you think they are finishing it in, it looks like varnish of some description, I'm assuming sprayed on as it marks when you fart next to it.

any and all help appreciated.

she will not let me do it but they need a decent finish or they need a lot more coats of the original.

cheers
Dean.

PS please ignore stupid spelling and grammatical mistakes as the iPad likes to put its own words in. At least I'm not sporting wood around my mother in law...

[Master Splinter]

I'd be 90% sure that it is finished in polyurethane, as that's the finish of choice these days. Possibly even a 2 pac poly if it is from some big factory. Poly is quick to apply, quick to build, and quick to dry so it can be packed and shipped out the door the same day.

Adding extra coats to this means sanding back to bare timber and starting again, as poly doesn't like to stick to cured poly. If it's a real cheap finish, it might be just be two coats.

You'll also find that over time (3-4 years) the poly cracks away from any gum veins/sap runs, as the dry sap moves more than poly can cope with. This means that (again, over time) the timber around the cracks will get darker as it absorbs any polishes or spills or whatever, so you'll get funny little dark patches on the surface.

So if you want to refinish, you'll have to strip it first!!!

There's a possibility it is finished in some sort of lacquer - a rub with a rag and thinners (in an inconspicious place) should be able to tell. If it's lacquer it can be refinished, if you can identify what sort of lacquer it is!!!