Tea time – again

It’s just coming up to 4.00 pm so it’s time for tea yet again after doing more work on my old oak table. Today was supposed to be the end of it, bar fitting the new handles that I’m still waiting on being delivered from China, but actually I think that I might have to do a little bit more.

Today’s jobs were to give the whole table a final rub down with a fine sanding pad, give it a complete wipe over with acetone to make sure it was fully clean, degreased and dust-free, give all surfaces bar the top a coat of satin varnish and finally to give the top a good soaking with teak oil.

So that’s what I did and the results per se were more than acceptable, especially bearing in mind the state the table was in when I got it, as the following pictures show.

But there’s just one thing – it’s colour is slightly different to that of the other one, the latter having more of an orange-brown ‘glow’ compared to this one. The solution, should I have to go down that route, is pretty simple. The water-based satin varnish that I used was clear and it just means that I’d need to give the varnished surfaces a second coat with a brown tint.

And when I bought the teak oil, which isn’t half as nice as the small bottle of Topps that I brought with me from the UK as it’s much more watery and totally lacking in that gorgeous teak smell, I noticed that there was an alternative with a bit of colour in it. So if I bought a can of that (what I’ll do in the future with 2 litres of teak oil I have no idea) I’m sure that will solve the problem.

But I think that I’ll put off moving to Plan B at least until the handles arrive from China, because sometimes you find that wood darkens a bit in the few days after being treated. But if it doesn’t, what the heck, it’s only money 😉