A Finished Dining Table with lots of lessons for me
My wife and I built this table together, it’s the largest slab we’ve worked with and there were so many lessons along the way that we learned, but now we’ve finally got a hardy finish which will hopefully stand the test of time! It started as a slab of bare wood with a split so bad that it was being held together with a metal strap, we did the epoxy fill, bow ties, leg pockets and all the finish ourselves, just working out of a tool cupboard!
Initially we finished it with Rubio monocoat because YouTube led us to believe that it was magic, but surprisingly it doesn’t work for everything - this wood was so soft that the Rubio couldn’t protect it. Dents and deep scratches happened easily, and the surface cracked around the dents like it had a thin layer of glass on it.
So reluctantly after a few years of mild regret, now it’s had a full refinish with several coats of penetrating epoxy to stabilize the soft wood, then oil based poly to give it some uv protection and toughness. It took about 6 weeks to do, because of the extreme cure time for the poly, but it looks and feels so much tougher.
We’re looking forward to having it develop a whole new set of scratches and dents, as this is a piece we plan to live with, not just look at!