Found this yesterday at tidepools in the Los Angeles area and picked it up because it’s so unusual looking. The area where it was found has a lot of sulfur and it used to have a warm spring, but that closed after an earthquake about 100 years ago. It feels rather light for its size and is hard, but it feels like I could crack it if I hit it with a hammer
I stripped and sanded this table and then wiped it down really well with thinner (can’t buy mineral spirits in my state). and now there is this hazy white residue. What is it and how do I get rid of it? It feels slightly tacky/waxy, so I’m hesitant to move forward with sealing it. You can see at the top of the square on the left I scratched the residue with my nail and it leaves a mark.
Hi all! I’m a complete novice to this, and would really appreciate some help.
I am refinishing this table and when I bought it, it had a very golden/orangey, so I thought it was oak. But now that I have the stain off it looks so much lighter that I’m second guessing that. Can someone tell what type of wood this is?
Also, now that I have it pretty much down to bare wood I need to figure out how to finish it! Is there a general rule for picking a color for stain? I was looking at using Danish oil since it is really beginner friendly. But I want to choose a color that suits the piece and I’m also open to other products if there are better ones out there (just needs to be beginner-friendly). Thank you!
I bought this table to try my hand at refinishing wood. The top of it looked water damaged and it was scratched, but not terribly so and I thought it would be good practice. Now I’ve sanded off the finish on top of the table and the grain is quite dark. I don’t know if that’s because there is stain in all the little grooves, or if it was more damaged than I thought and there is mold/mildew in the grain, or if it’s totally normal. When I googled, I found that oak has a very open, porous grain, so this may be totally normal for oak (I think this is oak, but I may be wrong about that too).
If anyone has advice on the next step, I would appreciate it! I dont know if I should try scrubbing with acetone or something, or if it’s ready for stain and clear coat.
I was going to use a basic water based stain and wipe on clear coat, but if anyone has recommendations for beginner-friendly products I would love to hear them!
And I found the best original painting I’ve ever found at the thrift! It is not signed, but it looks old. There was a man at the store that that owns a framing shop and gallery in town. He asked to see the painting and he said he wouldn’t have bought it if he found it first and he thought it looked like it was from the 1940s. It looks filthy and maybe smoke-stained, but I absolutely love it and I’m going to find a place for it asap.
One of my neighbors put this out a couple days ahead of bulky trash pickup with a “FREE” sign on it. I was hoping someone would come get it since I don’t really have time for another project. But the night before trash pickup it was still there so I went to inspect and it’s quite heavy and nice and sturdy, so I really didn’t want it to go to the landfill.
It doesn’t seem very old and it feels really solid and doesn’t appear to be made of MDF or pressboard, but it does seem like the white paint is the factory finish.
My question is, what is people’s general opinion on refinishing something like this? Is it worth sanding down the top to see what it looks like under the paint, or should I assume that the wood is not great quality if it was painted at the factory? I would love to do a natural wood top with painted legs, but I already have a few other projects going, including a big interior home painting project (as you may be able to see from the mess and plastic sheeting in my photos), so I don’t have a ton of time to dedicate to this.