Refinishing a Dining Room Table

This table is an antique that is, unfortunately, no longer worth much as an antique. This is because the underframe sliders were shot and I had to replace them with new braces made of, oops, new wood.

The original table and chair set belonged to my wife’s mother, and when she died we got the items. The table’s top surface had been burned in several places (a checkered history, had this table) and one of the extension slats was actually made of plywood and the second extension actually had a notch cut into one end. The chairs, after years of use, were rickety, although their wood finishes were really OK. It might have been an antique, but it was limited in terms of practical use.

To fix things with the table, I dismantled the unit and took the top out to the shop. I then sanded the old finish off, purchased some red oak to replace the bad inserts (the existing wood was some other kind of oak, but the match I got was really quite good), and then put the dismantled top back together by using several long 2×4 pine braces on the underside. (Sanding was carefully done by means of a Craftsman belt sander, with a Ridgid, 6-inch random-orbit sander smoothing things out more completely.) The beams were held in place by solid glue and 4-inch screws that were “just” long enough to not quite poke through the top side of the table surface. I also rebraced the trim around the underside of the circumference and also installed new trim pieces in the area under the extentension slats to make a continuous trim edge. The existing table-top edge was too squared off for comfort, so I used one of my Ryobi routers and a big roundover bit to give it a curved profile. The table surface can no longer be enlarged or shrunk, but at least is is as solid as a battleship.

The pedestal of the table did not need refinishing, but it did need new covers on the top and bottom. When doing this I discovered that the very heavy pedestal was heavy, because although hollow, that hollow space was frilled by a cut-down. cast-iron automobile engine crankshaft! How’s that for ballast? I left the weight in there to retain the table’s stability when surrounded by large family gatherings, and sealed the thing back up. I then screwed a fairly large 3/4 inch sheet of plywood to the pedestal top and then installed the refinished top to the plywood by screwing the plywood to the undersides of the new 2×4 braces already attached solidly under the table planks.

Once inside and reassembled the top was stained (I very carefully did the job without dripping stain on that wool rug under the table) and then give three coates of polyurethane.

The chair frames also needed reinforcing and while waiting for the stain and polyurethane treatments to dry I installed thick plywood braces to the underside of the seat panels and also reglued and rescrewed most leg sections. The wife then had the seat bottoms re-upholstered.

The result is a workable dining-room set that looks nice, although the value of the items as pristine antiques has been shot to hell.

Howard Ferstler