O.T. Wood working question

[Mike Amick]

I have this old coffee table that I would like to bring back to life.
As you can see it has the common problem of the veneer or laminate or
whatever it is peeling off.

My tentative plan is to sand it down and paint it.

My question is should I sand the covering off or just ruff it up. Or
should it go to the dump.

[J Tiers]

If you have the pieces that came off, a little cleaning up of old glue, and you can re-attach. I use hide glue, but you can sit yourself about that.

If you want to paint it (ugh) then you can do whatever. Paint one coat, then sand it to even up would be my suggestion, as the paint will likely raise fibers if you sand first.

[welderskelter]

Lay a board across the top of it as a guide and run the skilsaw across the whole front of it and paint. Paint covers a lot of rough edges.

[rickyb]

I’d chisel off the bad veneer and add new veneer to match dimension and texture. Then paint.

[Stu]

https://www.woodcraft.com/products/w...5-edge-banding

[boslab]

Iron on is handy but I prefer cutting slightly thicker on the table saw
mark

[Corbettprime]

I'll second that. Sharp chisel, HD or Lowe's for iron on wood tape, stain to match or paint.

[6270 Productions]

I have been working wood for more than 50 years . . . but since this is a machinist forum . . . I would just weld up a couple of chunks of 1/2" plate and set that on top.

🤣

[Dan Dubeau]

Looks to be actual wood edge veneer, not iron on banding, so I'd use a router with a straight bit and clamp a straight edge to the top at the right spot and clean up the entire edge. Then you can re glue appropriate veneers and sand/stain to match. Router would let you get the entire edge without touching the 2nd part of the top.

I'm guessing here, but.....Does that part with the glass inset hinge up? If so, you could remove that whole piece then running it through a table saw to clean up that edge too. A circular saw would also work, but would be my last choice. .

Cover the top in painters tape to prevent deep scratches from running the tool base across.

Of course a good chisel would also work as mentioned above, but not be as fast, and IMO more potential to do more damage if you're not careful.

[Ridgerunner]

If you are going to be doing any sawing on the top, first lay a straight edge on the top and score the wood with a utility knife. Saw just outside the line and finish with a sander. Scoring the wood helps prevent the wood from splintering back from the saw blade.

[SLK001]

Or should it go to the dump.

I would send it to the dump. I don't like veneered furniture, because it usually hides a crappy substrate AND I do't like the look of it. I make all my furniture and I only use solid wood.

[JoeLee]

Iron on is handy but I prefer cutting slightly thicker on the table saw
mark

I also cut my own edging / banding and usually a little thicker as you mentioned. I don't care for the iron on stuff, it's usually too thin and any imperfections in the edge tend to show through it.

I would find a similar looking wood and and replace it.

Personally I would never paint any furniture.

JL.................

[CarlByrns]

I've seen some mediocre furniture repainted like a show car with multiple coats, sanded and tack ragged between coats. A hard high-gloss color finish can be stunning on the right furniture in the right setting.

[JoeLee]

I've seen some mediocre furniture repainted like a show car with multiple coats, sanded and tack ragged between coats. A hard high-gloss color finish can be stunning on the right furniture in the right setting.

I painted / restored a grand piano for a friend one time. It cam out of a high school so you can imagine what it looked like.
He brought it to me gutted. I stripped it and did all the body work on it. Several coats of polyester spray fill sanding in between coats to work out the imperfections and fill in the grain.
When I was finished with that I put two coats of Glasurits single stage urethane jet black on it. Wet sanded and buffed. It was show car perfect but I wold never do another one.

JL............

[BCRider]

If you like the function of the flip open top and you like the overall look then I'd suggest a few steps to update it. Fair warning. This will entail a good lot of work to do neatly.

First is to use paint and varnish stripper to remove the old varnish and hopefully the stain. Often these pieces were sprayed with a tinted varnish and there is no actual stain in the wood. Once the varnish is gone and the stripper cleaned up give the wood a smooth sanding with fine grain paper to even things up and get a clearer look at it.

Now is when the wood working comes in. I'm in agreement with the others that the edge banding is not nice to work with. And it's fragile to boot. So I'd say chisel or cleanly saw away all the edges that need banding and get a plank of similar color wood and slice off something like 1/8 thick cap pieces as new bolder banding. With the new edges glued in place trim them flush with the faces CAREFULLY! The face veneer is VERY thin so use a lot of care to not sand the veneer with anything other than very fine sandpaper and even then don't do much of it. Assuming this works out well now you can consider how to finish the wood. I'd suggest you start with just a little splash of low odor paint thinner and see how it brings out the contrast and slightly deepens the natural color. If you like the look then just varnish the wood. If it's not to your taste then consider how to stain then varnish.

If you just don't want a wood piece then repair the banding with just about anything including the option of Bondo. Then lightly sand the shiny surfaces for some tooth and use a primer/adhesion layer with a good reputation for sticking to mystery finishes. From there I'd suggest melamine paint since it doesn't mark as easily and will resist fairly aggressive cleaning products for washing food and other stains off the surface.