Restoring dark Ercol table to natural wood

[woodbrains]

Hello,

Indeed, the table top is solid. The close up photo does not show the same stripe along the edge of the first photo, which had alarm bells ringing!
A Random orbit sander would be your best friend to get the look of the restoration you have posted, if this is the way you want to go.

Mike.

 

[rob.]

I stripped a vintage Oak refectory table a few years back, the brown stain was so deep in the grain nothing could lift it out.

 

[tomatwark]

I stripped and refinished one of these for a customer about 20 years ago, the top was solid.

But the wood had been stained first so and as I was refinishing to the original colour it did not matter, but I think you will struggle to get stain out of the grain and back to a natural elm colour.

I think that the elm was not that good any way being fairly variable in colour as well, I guess Ercol will have kept the better colour tops for the natural tables and stained the ones which did not look as good.

 

[rob.]

I had exactly the same problem with an Oak table a few years back.
some photos in this thread.
I'm still using the table, after a fair few coats of linseed, several years and a lot of elbow grease it doesn't look too bad but you can still make out the colour variations in the wood.

restoring-dark-ercol-table-to-natural-wood-t98404.html

 

[KatieFrith]

Thank you for all the advice everyone. I don't mind some of the original stain remaining post sanding, or some colour variability. Looks like lidl are selling random orbital sanders this week, so I plan to sand the top with one of those and then paint the legs. I will post pictures when I am done, in case it is of use to anyone else..

 

[rob.]

I picked up one of these last week, great little tool at a good price.

http://www.axminster.co.uk/makita-bo504 ... der-950839