refinishing a dining room table

[Dave Novak]

About 7 years ago I built and finished a large (about 7' round) dining table out of alternating glued up strips of cherry, walnut, and maple. I finished it with a water based poly (before I became an avid reader of these forums and realized that wasn't the best finish for this purpose). Anyway, during a holiday party it was the staging ground for a number of serving dishes, one of which was too hot, and it's in dire need of refinishing. Can I sand it smooth, without removing all of the poly, and finish it with Behlen's rock hard? Due to it's size and the fact that I suck at brushing I'd like to spray it. Assuming I can top a water based finish with Behlens, how much I should thin the rock hard for spraying, or is that simply a trial and error process to get right? Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

[Joe Chritz]

I guess you could. Behlen's is pretty slow drying for spraying but other than the mess of over spray it should be pretty good.

I expect you could sand the top down completely without much difficulty and start over with fresh wood, which is always a good idea.

Since you are set for spraying there are a lot of other finishes just as good as the Rockhard that are formulated for spraying. I would probably go for Target Conversion varnish (8000CV)as a first look or the Oxford HybriVar WB-Alkyd Varnish. The last I haven't used but have it appears by all reports to be a top notch finish.

Joe

[Dave Novak]

I appreciate your quote "For best results, try not to do anything stupid." Its getting close to golf season, so I couldn't wait for advice. I got the top down to bare wood, but holy cow, anyone who thinks a water based poly isn't tough should have watched me sand. I had to go all the way down to 50 grit on my festool rotex sander for several hours to break through that poly. It was too late at night to spray since I could only get one coat on so I brushed on a coat. I think I'll be alright, I'll just have to sand again in a day or two when its dry and pick a day when I can spray 2 coats to justify that mess. I bought some pumice and rottenstone for another project, I'll save it for this one. Thanks for responding.

[Steve Schoene]

If you are sspsraying relatively full wet coats of Rockhard I wouldn't try to apply two coats in a day. You don't want a upper layer coat to inhibit the curing of the lower level coat. Unless you have significantly thinner coats, like you get from a wipe on consistency, then you should give the Rockhard an overnight cure per coat, and sand lightly between each.