40 y.o.redwood deck now for tables

[Terry Sparks]

I yanked out a 300 sf redwood deck off the back of my house two months ago and replaced it with a deck that is 3x's that size. The entire pile of the old wood has been sitting in a corner and out of sight until now. Today, I put a few of the old 2x6x16 redwood boards through the planer and found out that they all have great worm holes, termite holes and rusted out screw holes that you just can't buy in any store. Now with that in mind, I'm thinking of making this new found wood into tables, complete with all the termite and rusted screw holes. So my question is, what type of finish or schedule should I use on these boards that allows the patina to show and also allow a clean/solid surface?

Your thoughts are very much apperciated.

Thank you,

Terry

[Dan Bertenthal]

Terry,
I've been searching the internet lately and have found information about finishing redwood for *indoor* furniture hard to come by (tons of information about redwood burls which may have overwhelmed the search efforts).
My girlfriend and I turned a series of lamps this summer out of construction-grade 6x6s and have had good results with waxes from Liberon (beeswax in turpentine) and Briwax (beeswax in toluene). That said, beeswax wouldn't provide very good durability for a tabletop but should work great on the legs and stretchers. The wood really soaked up the finish. The finish starts to look really good after about four coats. You probably already know this, but with us being novices to finishing, we found that it really made a difference to rub out the wax well between applications!
As an aside, we also experimented with melting pure beeswax on the lathe and found that it produced a considerably darker color. We're speculating that the heat from the friction may have caused some sort of chemical change in the wood, but that's just a hunch.
Good luck with whatever you try and please be sure to post back to the list with your experiences!
Regards,
Dan and Kate

[Steve Schoene]

Is it correct that these tables are for interior use? Will they be heavily used, or be mostly decorative. Do you use coasters?

Tell us a bit more about the look you are seeking. Clearly you have rustic in mind to some degree. How glossy should the finish be? When you say you want a solid/clean finish do you mean that the various nail and termite holes shuld be filled? Do you plan to distress the surfaces and edges in any other ways?