The Sugar Maple O'hearn dinning table tutorial

This project was my friend Jessica's table. It is clearly marked as an O'hearn table made of Sugar Maple.

 From my research I believe it was sold in 1958 so it has sustained itself for over 50 years. It needed to be completely stripped and sanded and then finished. I was really sad to take this beautiful patina off but there were small bits of damage that made it necessary to sand it all down. Luckily in some years the patina will come back. This wood was gorgeous though!! So much ribboning in the wood. I'm sad because photos just don't do the ribboning justice. Anyway so this is what I started with.

Here are the bits of damage that made it necessary to sand it all the way down.

Here it is with the leaves hanging down.

 I unscrewed the two hanging leaves and flipped the table over to start on the legs. The legs were the most time consuming part of the project because of all the round parts and details.  I started with a paint stripper, a really smelly one.

 This was really messy. I used my ventilation mask and chemical gloves.

I covered the under part of the table with plastic. 

I scraped with a wire brush and with my 5 in 1 scrapper. 

 This is what it looked like after all that chemical and scraping, it was a long process.

 Then after that I sanded it all smooth with a 60 grit, then 100 then 150.

 Then I flipped the table over and sanded the top and leaves with this:

I love this sand paper, it takes the finish off quickly.

 Then I went over them all with 100 grit then 150 to prep for the finish. I prepped the bottom of the two hanging leaves the same say because you will see the bottom of the table anytime the leaves are down ( I learned this the hard way with one of my hanging leaf tables)

 This table was a lot of sanding, I always use a facemask or bandanna when sanding to keep the dust out of me. I sanded everything down with 150 again and used my shopvac to get all the dust off. Then I used my hand to take the final layer of dust off.

I made sure to sand a small section under the middle leaf to test if Jessica wanted to use some stain or just Waterlox. Here is the photo:

The stain (top) was the same color as the waterlox (bottom)! Except the waterlox brought out the beautiful ribboning and made the wood look amazing while the stain seemed to just make it the same color yet dull. So she chose straight waterlox, I agreed fully here. So I got to work on it again.

 I used a foam brush for each application. the first 2 coats really seeped into the wood.  I then did 4 more coats making sure to wait at least 24 hours between each coat and sanding it light between every 2 coats with a 320 grit sandpaper, just with my hand, no more sanders used.

 After the 6th coat I let it cure for 7 days and voila it was finished. I love how it turned out. My husband wants me to find this exact table and do one for us. The ribboning in the wood was seriously gorgeous.

and here are the glam shots in my front room.

 And there it is! I would say if you find a peice of furniture made of sugar maple. GET IT. So beautiful!

Miriam