I’ve just started working on some projects for a customer and I figured I’d get started with a quick and straightforward restoration. Quick for me is a relative term as this “quick” project took me almost a month of weekends and evenings.

This one is a maple end table that has seen better days. It was not old, maybe vintage, but it needed some attention.

I started by taking it apart so I could evaluate the parts individually. There were a couple of screws that needed to be extracted the hard way and a couple that needed to be cut, but other than that it was in good shape. Drilled out the screws, filled the holes with dowel and then redrilled for new screws.

This was constructed with slotted screws, but since it will be a user piece rather than a showpiece I replaced them with McFeely’s square drive screws.

After stripping the individual pieces I found some beautiful maple that really popped after a coat of tung oil. I love the chatoyance I got on almost every piece of the table. Unfortunately, much of it will not often be seen unless the person either picks up the table or lays down on the floor to look at it.

The table top had some pretty serious gaps from shrinkage, so I re-glued it.

I was very happily surprised that so much of the ink stain was just in the paint and didn’t go too deep. The tabletop had some very minor cupping and twisting, but the battens on the bottom and the gallery rails on top took it all out.

After a light sanding, I started with 3 or 4 coats of Dark Half (1/2 dark tung oil and 1/2 citrus solvent) from Real Milkpaint. After letting it cure, I then added a couple of coats of garnet shellac and then a couple of coats of blonde shellac.

All that’s left for this piece is to give it a few coats of wax (maybe a dark wax) and then find it a new home. It’s already been conscripted as a work table in our livingroom. I’m using it to hold my caning tools and supplies as I work on some chairs.