Furniture, Wood and Cabinetry Finishing - Refinishing Oak Kitchen Table

Hi,

I have a oak kitchen table base with glass top. I just sanded it to bare wood with a random orbit sander. I'd like to stain it and coat with something that is durable since the base of the furniture will be used as foot rest. Would you please tell me what type of stain and coating that will withstand the abuse? Thank you.

Kevin

IMO oil base stain is better than a water based and an oil base polyurathane dries much harder than than it's water base counterpart = wears better. 1 coat of stain [wipe off excess] when dry apply 3 coats of poly, sanding lightly between coats.

Minwax is a good easy to find brand for both stain and poly. A satin finish won't show wear as easily as a gloss finish will.

Dear Marksr,

Thank you for the information and I have a few follow up questions. How can I tell whether particular stain is oil based? I have several cans of Minwax stains and a Minwax polyurethane can and one can of Behr stain at home. The Behr stain has a label it says it is a water-based stain. However, only one of the Minwax cans has a label that says it is an oil-based stain. Can I assume that the rest of the Minwax cans I have is also oil-based? In the absense of the label, how can I tell whether it is oil-base or water-based?

Also, is semi-gloss finish same as satin finish? Thank you for your help.

Kevin

The label should always say if the coating is oil base, latex or whatever. Usually all oil base products will need paint thinner for clean up. Waterbased always cleans up with water. Oil base will also have a stronger odor than a latex/waterbased coating. Most minwax stains are oil base. If I'm not mistaken all their water based coatings have a blue label.

There are 3 basic sheens for paints/polys - satin [which has the least sheen], semi-gloss and gloss.

Marksr,

Thank you. The cans I have, the one with the description and the ones without, are all in red wrappers and have similar "strong" order. I just think they were manufactured in different times. Thank you again for your help.

Kevin

Hey what orbit sander did you use and how did it come out?
I was looking to do the same thing , but i thought you had to use a stripper first..


zim

zimzum
It is best to use stripper first and then sandpaper = less work, quicker :D It is possible to completely sand of a finish but it takes a lot of effort. Often someone will think they have sanded off all of the previous finish only to apply a stain and not have it work correctly because there is still a little of the previous finish on the wood.

Whenever strip sanding it is best to start with a coarse grit and finish with a fine grit. The coarser grits will remove material faster but then you need a fine grit to get rid of the sanding scratches.

thanks marksr!!

Thank you for your reply. I did not use stripper since I am going to put same color of stain. I have not applied the stain yet so not sure how it is going to come out, but it looks ok so far. I will let you know once I finish it. By the way, I used Makita variable speed random orbit sander, hook and loop type.

Hi,

I finished the project. It came out great and I am happy with the result. Thank you all for your help.

Kevin

Nice to hear your project came out well :)