Fix damaged table finish

[Dave Rosner]

I have a nice solid cherry dresser from Ethan Allan that my wife wants to toss because it has some damage in the top. I’m pretty good with finishing my woodworking projects and I’ve read Flexners book many times and I think I’m somewhat knowledgeable on finishing. However I’m clueless about how to go about fixing this top. It’s got some minor scratches but the real problem areas go to the raw wood. Those areas the stain is still intact but it’s definitely lost all the layers of finish.

Do I have to strip this sucker down to raw wood and start over with the finish of my choice? Or can I determine if it’s a lacquer vs poly vs shellac and spot apply or broadly apply? I’ve watched lots of YouTube videos and they all seem to point to strip and start over.

Welcome sage advice...

[Steve Schoene]

You should be able to get a good job finishing the spot, albeit invisible is really really hard. The finish is not shellac which hasn't been used on industrial furniture for a very long time. neither is it poly, ie. a single part varnish with polyurethane resin included. Some recent, mostly european, furniture might use 2k 100% poly, but this is very doubtfull for ethan allen dressers, It's either NC lacquer, or catalyzed lacquer. If recent, it could be a waterborne acyrlic finish. But this isnt terribly relevent for spot refinishes.
Once you determine whether a spot repair is possible, then you can worry about what the existing top coat material is. You might check with Ethan Allen abouit that or there is an off chance that they have a repair kit for the particular finish. (They have had such kits for delivery personnel to fix oops enroute. It's been a long time since I knew that for sure.)

The first thing I would do is test how intect the stain is where the top coat is gone. I would apply mineral spirits to see whether the color comes close to matching the topcoated areas surrounding. If so, you can fill the areas which go to the wood with a top coat, and then level it to the rest of the top with fine sanding. At that point you will have a mismatch in sheen. sometimes the entire top could be gently rubbed out to a consistent sheen, though sometimes an overall topcoat would have to be sprayed on to equalize the sheen.

[Bennett Ostroff]

Any chance we could get a pic?

[Prashun Patel]

I refinished an Ethan allen coffee table. I did sand it down and then used aniline dyes to match the color. I spray finished with enduro clear poly. I got lucky and it looks good. i was nervous about the dye taking. I was lucky and it did.

[Dave Rosner]

If I used lacquer tanner to strip and no sanding do I need to worry about color matching? So I strip the finish off to get to wood. Then I get some lacquer spray can and go to town?

[Wayne Lomman]

Dave, stripping with thinner will still remove colour. You will need to colour match again.

As an alternative to total strip down and refinish, have a go at repair first. If it doesn't work, you can still go the whole hog and do it all later.

Since it is not certain what product is on the top now, do the repair with lacquer. Use a fine pencil brush to fill in the scratches in a few stages till you build it up to the same level as the rest of the finish. Don't rush the job and don't be afraid to add a bit of of colour as required to get it looking right. Cheers

[Jim Becker]

I agree with the "spot fix" method that Wayne speaks about for this particular situation. In addition to manually filling as was described, you could also use traditional toned wax fillers to, well...fill the larger scratches, lightly abrade the top and then top coat to get a new "pristine" surface. It's a lot better than sending it to the curb or the landfill. And if after the fix "the boss" still doesn't want it around, post it on Craig's List and the Facebook Marketplace and get some cash for it.

[Dave Rosner]

Hi all - thanks for the advice. I’ve been reading your suggestions, reading more on the net, and reread most of the flexner book. Sounds like I can use a lacquer finish to spot finish the places where the damage went down to wood. Here is the process as far as I can tell...

- I guess it doesn’t matter what kind of lacquer finish is there now? I grabbed a Minwax brushable lacquere from the borg because I need to apply with a brush. Will that work?

- so I use a small brush and just build up layers by applying every couple of hours. At some point I’ll be higher than the original finish around it. So I then use 400 or 600 to level with the rest of the top making sure I dont go below it.

- if all went well it will look good - but most likely it will be a different sheen. At that point I can use steel wool or auto polish to get it to match the rest of the top. Or if it’s close I can just apply paste wax to the entire top and try to get it all to match?

- at this point couldn’t I just buy a can of spray lacquer and put a final coat on the entire top to make it all uniform?

anything I’m missing assuming the original stain/color is a decent match?

[Jim Becker]

If you use lacquer, please be sure that you have appropriate ventilation and wear a respirator...the fumes from solvent based lacquer are both extremely flammable and also very unhealthy to breath. If your shop is physically inside your house, find someplace else to do this finish work, paying attention the stated temperature requirements for the product you are using.

And yes, once you build up the area to be repaired you could spray a coat or three over the entire surface to even things up. Please be absolutely sure that the current finish is lacquer, however. If not, putting lacquer on the piece could result in "very interesting" things happening to the existing finish if it reacts to the solvents in the lacquer you apply.