Need some thoughts from the finishing braintrust - Printable Version +- Woodnet Forums (https://forums.woodnet.net) +-- Thread: Need some thoughts from the finishing braintrust (/showthread.php?tid=7377047)

Need some thoughts from the finishing braintrust - doobes - 10-17-2024 Hai der! I promised my Daughter I would clean up a school house bench she bought at an antique store. This is what it looked like before I started: Pretty gruesome, right? It looks like it had been in a fire, and then some miscreant "repaired" it by shoving shavings into the cracks caused by expansion and then "refinishing". So I got it all apart and started sanding it. The top is Poplar as can be seen from the nice green tint: It's also interesting as it had been slitted to deal with expansion, but unfortunately as we saw, that failed miserably. So talking to my daughter, I ripped through the slits with my bandsaw, and then ripped through the splits, cleaned up all the edges and glued the top back together, This took about 2" out of the width. I've sanded about as much as I'm going to as the top is not particularly thick and sanding isn't helping that. All the screw hole had been wallow out over the years, so I got a piece of poplar and drilled the holes and plugged them with plugs in the correct grain orientation. This is what the legs look like: They were split as well, and burned, and rotted from sitting in water. The cleats for the underside, I shortened to suite the narrower top and slotted all the holes to allow movement after they are installed: Now to the gist of the question, what finish to put on it. I asked my daughter and she said "oh just put some tongue oil on it"... I've never finished Poplar as furniture before. I'd love to even out the color, and downplay the green tint and then put a topcoat that will protect the soft Poplar. Please weigh in with your thoughts. I've got a gazillion hours cleaning this thing up and don't want to bugger it up with the wrong finish. cheers, RE: Need some thoughts from the finishing braintrust - doobes - 10-17-2024 Sigh, Sorry the photos don't appear inline. I've put them all on a webpage: Meghan's Bench Thanks!