Finishing a Wood Table
George VondriskaDescription
Wood finish can be tricky. It’s nice to have techniques to help you out. Here’s my approach to finishing tables. It doesn’t matter what your finish method is—brush, wipe on, spray—this will help you out.
Start with screws
The table starts upside down on the bench, but while the finish is still wet, it’ll get flipped so it’s right-side up. A wet finish on the bottom of the legs would stick to your bench. And we’ve got to have a finish on the bottom of the legs. So get started by predrilling and driving a screw into the bottom of each leg. They’ll keep the legs from making contact with your bench when you flip.
Grab some scrap
Before flipping your table over, place some scrap on the bench so the tabletop isn’t directly on the bench. This allows you to get the finish on the edge of the top without adhering it to the bench. You want space, but use something other than pyramids for this. They can sometimes dimple the top. Bench cookies work well for providing space, but also have a soft, protective surface for your project.
Start finishing
Now you’re ready for the wood finish. As you apply it, remember to leave a few spots where you can place your hands to grab the table and flip it. As a rule, you want to finish top to bottom, so while it’s upside down, get the feet first and work down from there.
Flip
Once the underside is done, you’re ready to flip. Carefully set the table on the screw standoffs, and you’re ready to top coat the top.
More info
We know finishing your projects can be intimidating, so we’ve got lots of great info that’ll help you get wood finishing right the first time.
When it comes to finishing a table I have got a really distinct order of operations that I use that makes this really easy for me. Part of this is as much as I can, I wanna do everything in one fell swoop. I've got a waterfall table sitting here ready for finish and I'm gonna be spraying my finish with an HBLP, but it doesn't matter what your finishing approach is. This is gonna work for you. One of the things to notice is that I've got wood screws driven into the bottom of the legs. And what that's gonna let me do is go ahead and shoot the entire bottom side, flip this and shoot the other side. So I'm gonna gear up, I need a respirator and then I'll go ahead and shoot this inside face. That takes care of the base coat I'm putting on my table project. And again, what I like about this is it lets me do everything in one fell swoop. Part of it is the benefit of having the blocks under the table when it's upside down so that when I'm spraying from this side I'm not gonna stick this table to the table and then putting the screws in the bottom of the legs. So I can flip it over and get that coat started on this side. And as a result of that everything can dry in one fell swoop and then I can come back and basically rinse and repeat once I'm ready for a second coat. And that my friends, is the sequence I commonly use when I'm finishing tables like this one.
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