My wife and I have just notched up 10 years of marriage, not a bad effort I think. And while the marriage is still looking alright, we’ve a few years left in us at least, something else we bought 10 years ago is looking a little worse for wear. That would be our outdoor setting.
We bought this table and chair set back when we bought the house, so probably closer to 11 years ago now. For the first few years it was taken care of and looked after, and then I started to get more into woodworking, and less into maintaining. You may notice that I don’t have a workbench? Well, this table was my solution…which means it’s covered in paint, clamping marks and even the occasional bite from a jigsaw. We haven’t sat and eaten at it in years.
I’ve promised my wife for a long time that I’d restore it, so that’s what I decided to do this week. I shot video as I went, though it was a fairly easy experience, just more time consuming than anything else.
VIDEO IS COMING SOON — UPLOAD ISSUES!!!
I’ll probably get a couple comments about the polish I made – this is the first time that I’ve done this and I’m sure I haven’t done it right! But it looks nice, smells nice, and water beads up instead of soaking in so I’m calling it a win.
The simple recipe I used was made up by the ingredients I had on-hand.
- Around 100grams of grated Beeswax, I don’t even remember why I bought it – maybe to polish the tablesaw?
- Maybe a tablespoon of Olive Oil
- A spoonful of Eucalyptus Oil
I did have a look online for simple polishes, and then decided roll my own.
My thinking was, wax to protect from water; olive oil to treat the wood and protect from sunlight; Eucalyptus oil to smell nice and act as a bug and mosquito deterrent. I’ve never used beeswax before, I’m amazed at how quickly and hard it dries as it cools. It actually cooled and solidified as I poured cold oil into the hot liquid wax, you could see the wax around the oil harden and then melt again a moment later.
It dried into a very hard polish, I had to scrape it to get it out of the jar and rubbing it into the wood took a fair bit of elbow grease. Probably more oil would have softened it up, but I didn’t want to go overboard in case all those horror stories about olive oil going rancid are true. It does look nice, but I think next time I might just buy a cheap polish and save myself the trouble.
As for the table, it’s great having it all nice and clean again. We’ve eaten dinner outside the past 4 nights and it’s been beautiful. We’ve had perfect Spring weather, cool but not cold, the kids are home on school holidays and have loved the treat of eating outside, and as a bonus we’ve had the outdoor fire burning away for a bit of ambience. Or for toasting marshmallows, yeah mainly for marshmallows.