refinishing ... lightening (is that a word?) ...

[Matt McGill]

hi.

I'm a rookie and love learning from people on this site.

I have a friend who wants this mango wood table to be lighter (in color, not weight) (jk). Pic below.

I'm thinking I need to sand it down, and re-finish it ...

(a) Am I right? If not, is there something that can be applied to "bleach" it?
(b) for sanding the curved parts ... what's my best bet for that? Orbital sander with a thick pad of some kind? My hands and some kind of sanding pad?

thanks, everyone!

matt

IMG_6064.jpg

[Jim Becker]

Personally, this is the kind of thing I'd not attempt. It's way too easy to totally screw up a nice piece of furniture like that.

What you might want to do, however, is in an inconspicuous place on the underside of the table top (assuming it's solid stock and the same wood), lightly hand sand a spot to remove any finish and see what the actual "color" of the wood is before you do anything. Further, sanding is not the best way to remove a finish. Use a stripper. A surprising amount of furniture that appears to be solid stock is not...it's veneer and sanding through it makes for a bad day and a strain on a friendship in your case.

[John TenEyck]

In addition to what Jim said, that table might just be a natural finish. I don't see any obvious dye or stain on it. If so, sanding or stripping it isn't going to lighten it. It would require bleaching to do that, and that's not something you want to try on anything of value if you've never done it before.

Also, some woods get lighter with age, walnut being one of them. I have no clue about mango wood, but if it behaves the same way, sanding it to fresh wood will make it darker.

John

[Matt McGill]

Thanks for the feedback!