Anybody Refinish Furniture?

MelroseHawkins

MelroseHawkins

Well-Known Member
Ok. Some knuckehead's going to holler out "This is a football thread and no place for this!". Well, I don't care so save your breath. There is no off-topic. I put it in the title and you came in anyway.

Anyway, I am doing a first refinish job on a table that could be very old. My wife's grandparents may have purchased it. Really hard wood with really tight grain. Has a red hue to it. Does anybody know what kind of wood I might be dealing with. Guy at work said possibly a rosewood.

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Hard to tell from the pix, the last close up of the grain makes it look like oak but is too smooth. Nicely figured if it is walnut. Walnut has a smell to it when sanded that smells like.... walnuts. The picture showing the top looks like walnut. Is it heavy enough that it would take a professional furniture mover like Shonn Greene to lift it? Wet a spot with water and take another shot, like the last closeup, while it is wet - will look more like the finished material.
 




looks like oak to me. do you get any whisky smell when sanding? that smell comes from oak barrels.

to me, it is way to light for walnut. and the grain appears to be unmistakable for oak. that being said, tough to tell from the pictures.
 




I have a feeling that the Hawkeye's upcoming season and this furniture project are going reach very similar conclusions.
 


A good chance it could be American Chestnut. It is mistaken for oak and walnut a lot. If it is you have a very rare and valuable piece of funiture. American Chestnut was widely used 100 years ago but a blight killed almost every tree.
Wormy Chestnut still exists and used but your table does not have the same grain lines. You need to find out from a wood/furniture expert before you go any further with your refinish project. Staining it could destroy the value if it is American Chestnut. The wood alone could be worth a lot of money but if you want the table for a family heirloom you need to do it up right.
 




dwghawk said:
A good chance it could be American Chestnut. It is mistaken for oak and walnut a lot. If it is you have a very rare and valuable piece of funiture. American Chestnut was widely used 100 years ago but a blight killed almost every tree.
Wormy Chestnut still exists and used but your table does not have the same grain lines. You need to find out from a wood/furniture expert before you go any further with your refinish project. Staining it could destroy the value if it is American Chestnut. The wood alone could be worth a lot of money but if you want the table for a family heirloom you need to do it up right.
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Thank you so much for your input. I think I could tell oak as I have worked with oak in the past making new projects but not refinishing such an old piece. I'm not sure the grain looks like is oak. I would think walnut would be darker. This seems to have a reddish or purple hue to it at times. Again, this table and chairs could be 1920's or 1930's for all I know. My wife's dad is 79 yrs old and I think either his parents or my wife's mom's parents had it. I know it is old because the support braces on the back/underneath are solid hard wood and probably the same wood, and this is indicative of old furniture before they used cheaper wood for braces.

I do have the project on hold and not going to stain it until I find out more. I was thinking the same thing as you pointed out and DO NOT want to screw it up. I also would like to get it as natural or original as I can. I have some feelers out to people to ask if they know what it is.
 


are the chairs the same wood as the table? take it to a furniture guy and ask. easy to transport a chair. or a table leaf if you have one. i've got a quartersawn oak dining room table - big clawfoot - that my grandparents owned - at least a 100 year old table. refinished a few years ago. ultimately you are going to stain it with what looks good - what the wood is is only a detail. i'm assuming the value really doesn't matter given the assumption is you are going to keep it as an heirloom. i would disagree that staining it destroying value - a new stain is simply a sanding away.
 


Funny you say that Ankle. Someone commented back to me about it being quartersawn and that fits the description with the rays showing which really shows with white oak or red oak. Good news is that it is more expensive and about 4X the cost of the usual cut. I was thinking of a Mission stain that I think looked good on an image I looked up. Quartersawn oak makes sense as the top shows the rays but the molding on the edge of the table isn't quartersawn because doesn't show the rays. Also, the base doesn't show the rays.

Do you happen to know what your table and chairs is worth? I wouldn't be surprised if this thing is 100+ years old. I know I had to set deeper some square nail heads that were sticking up a bit. Someone also told me that older furniture has straight screw heads instead of newer phillip head screws. Another way to tell.
 


The top for sure is oak. I cannot tell from the base as much but I am confident it is oak as well. I have a table almost exactly like that in my kitchen. If you finish it correctly that top grain will pop and it will look very nice.
 


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