Refinishing Question

Jeb Taylor

Member
Messages
518
Location
Decatur, Alabama
I'm working on refinishing a kid's table and chairs for my wife's grandmother. It had been botched up really bad by someone she paid to do it a few years ago, so she asked me to try and make it nice again. I'm not a big fan of refinishing old stuff, but it's been in the family for around 70-80 yrs, so I thought it was a good project.

Here's a pic of table, I had no trouble with it. Lot of sanding to get the scratches out, and all but a couple small indentions.
IMG_0004.jpg

The chairs are another issue. I haven't started on this one, but the finish is all botched up in places. I'm not sure what the guy before me did, but it's really bad. Lot of gunk up around all the joints:
IMG_0002.jpg
All the joints are loose also. My question is how is the best way to clean all this junk off at the exposed portion of the tenon without messing up the fit of the tenons?

I was thinking a wedge tenon on the chair legs, but the spindels are about 1/4" tenons. I wasn't sure which way to go: re-glue with wood glue, sand it and re-glue, change to epoxy to fill the gap? To give you some perspective of the size:
IMG_0003.jpg
 
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So sand/scrape to remove the old glue, no fancy solvents or anything to get it off?

How about the sockets, do they need to be sanded out to get a good glue bond too?
 
Thanks Dave.

I'm learning a bit on this project, first time i've ever hand sanded anything. I remembered one of your earlier posts about going through all the grits. I've been using about 7-8 strokes on each grit (80/100/120/150/220). I had always cut corners before and skipped from 100 to 220. It's amazing how much better results I'm getting doing it right :) Much more even color than I've had in the past.

The table legs were a little too light on the first staining, resanded at 150 and they came out nice for my standards. I'll update the chairs when I get them further along.
 
Jeb these little steps are what make my work top quality in the business. People thing there is not much difference but when you stack your work up to the next guys the difference is very visible to the eye and to the touch.

Looks forward to seeing the end results. :thumb:
 
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