Ethan Allen

Have you ever bought somet I found this table on Marketplace for $40 marked down from $50 and I thought that looks I'm not sure what I was t Maybe I was just in the mood for a challenge but I offered the seller $30 for it. He accepted and here it is. Now there are some redeeming qualities to t It is Ethan Allen and most Ethan Allen pieces I've come across are solid, maple or birch and don't use veneer and t Solid, maple and birch. Not that there's anything wrong with veneer as I've said plenty of times before in my videos but in a case Having no veneer will leave me with more options. I can dig a little deeper if I have to try and remove stains or paint or whatever is on there without worrying about going through veneer and another plus is that it comes apart. The legs come off and I can take the leaves off w I'm going to try a scraper to get t It is a paint scraper after all so see how it does. The paint scraper worked really well on the paint and it also worked well on the original finish underneath the paint. T What was left of it there actually wasn't a whole lot of finish left on the top. In addition to the paint scraper I also used a card scraper and a utility knife blade whatever it took to get the finish off. On the legs I decided to use a chemical stripper as a post scraping. I just don't It's easier just to use the stripper and the stripper I used is QCS by Stripwell and it works really well to get these old mid-century lacquer finishes off. If you'd I left a little bit of the old finish around t I t So super glue I won't have to clamp. That was just some accelerator I sprayed on there to make it dry quicker. There it is. Okay it's time to try and fix t So t I've tried clamping it and I can't get these two wedges to meet and it's kind of a V-shaped or wedge shaped gap so it's t So I cut a really thin piece of maple from a scrap piece of wood on a table saw and it's going to go in here I've got t Alright now take that out. Now try to get t Alright I t Alright let'see if t Looks pretty good. It's relatively flat. Looks I'll take care of the rest of t Once the finish was removed I was left with a very blotchy look on the wood. The light areas I t So I want to get t I first tried using a random orbit sander to get that color out but it was going to take a long time so I went for somet And I there's no veneer on t I just want a fresh start with t So I put a 120 grit belt on the belt sander. I was a little nervous about using it still and I didn't want to get too aggressive so I just started out with 120 and very carefully got to sanding. On the legs I didn't use the belt sander because that would have just obliterated all the details on the leg so unfortunately I just had to do most of that by hand w It wasn't until after the hours and hours of arduous hand sanding that I found a video by today'sponsor Woodworkers Guild of America showing a much easier way to sand details T Woodworkers Guild of America is an incredible online resource for woodworking instructions, ideas and information. I'm happy to say that the first 1000 viewers to click the link in the video description will get a full year of premi 49. Their videos are taught by professional instructors and they're always creating new videos to keep you interested and inspired. Viewers of my channel may have particular interest in videos So remember the first 1000 viewers to click the link in the video description will get a full year of premi 49. Thank you Woodworkers Guild of America for sponsoring the next step in my quest to get t I got a kit that comes with two bottles. One bottle has sodi I left it overnight to dry and when I wet the wood down to get a look at the results it didn't look so good. It was pretty blotchy. There were some areas that did certainly get bleached but then there were other areas that were still pretty dark. T It's kind of blotchy. It's got some spots where it's really light and most of it though is not light and it's yeah pretty blotchy so definitely not what I wanted. So I decided to do another application of the bleach. I think the reason that it didn't work so well the first time was because I didn't keep the wood wet enough with the sodi It was a pretty warm day and the wood just kept drying out. I tried to leave it for the full 10 minutes with solution A on it and keep it wet but it just kept drying out so I had to add a lot of the solution A to it and it doesn't come with a lot so I was close to running out so I was a little stingy with solution A. So the second time I just made sure to put plenty of solution A on and keep it wet and also it was cooler out w It didn't dry out so quickly and I put it outside in the sun to dry. I had read somewhere that is supposed to help. I don't know if it actually did help because I don't know what it would have looked And here are the table parts after that second bleach application and in t So I decided I wanted to put a w I t It wasn't a night and day difference but it definitely helped and I t And I should also mention that I did sand the entire piece by hand with 150 grit before I applied the stain. I didn't film it though because who wants to see more sanding. I let the stain dry and then it was time to add the clear top coat and for that I chose clear lacquer. At least that's what I chose initially. After getting a few coats of t If any stains penetrate into t So I thought that I should really go with somet So in the spirit of trying new t So it'still a bit of an unknown to me but I felt I wanted it to stay as light and not yellow as possible. So I brushed on a few coats and even the process of brus Usually I'm either spraying it on or in the case of a wipe on polyurethane I'm wiping it on. So t Really the only challenge with there would sometimes be some small bubbles in the finish as I brushed it on and I tried to just gently brush those out but without overworking the finish and it was a warm dry day so t And now I can put it all back together. And here it is all finished.