Restoring old arcade cocktail table, suggestions needed

Gday all,

I am current restoring an old cocktail arcade table shown below. I'm at a stage where I want/need to start looking at restoring the finish on the wooden tub bit. I really dont know much about finishing wood but I have been having a bit of a read about it and that's how I got here, through google :)

Anyway, what I am after is some sort of tips to give it a coating of shine

I was thinking along the lines of Estapol gloss type finish - but I've been told that if the estapol goes 'cloudy' that I might completely ruin it.

It's also been suggested that I try give it a polish with floor board polish ?

Anyone got any suggestions what I can bump it up a bit with ?

Beginning..
http://mjo.customer.netspace.net.au/...s/100_1687.JPG


Now..
http://mjo.customer.netspace.net.au/...s/100_1764.JPG



Cheers for any help,
Snippy...

Hey Snippy

Welcome aboard !

First I would have a good look at what is under the "wood grain" finish - I'm pretty sure you will find it is chipboard - if this is the case have a good look at it to make sure it is still sound and that 30 years ago someone didn't spill a full choccy milk somewhere and make it swell or detiorate.

The laminate ("wood grain finish") will be absolutely synthetic. give it a wipe with some kitchen cleaner to get the grime off it and them hit it with Mr Sheen if you want to do it easy.

Or you could ask the good people of the forum how you could go about making a real timber one from scratch...

Yeah no joy, it's clean, but dull. No shine.

The panel is made of about 5 layers, the unit was made in japan ~1979 so I wanted to keep the original look. Just rejuvinate it a bit. I dont know much about vinyl (which is obvious, hehe), but this is not the obvious sticker looking stick on stuff that one might see on a car.

So there's nothing at all that will add shine to this thing ? bummer ! :(

Snippy

Looks like laminex to me but could be wrong. Did you sand it???? If so that is why there is no shine.

You will find that polyu and most other surface coatings would have fallen off the laminex before but since you have used Mr Sheen :eek: on it, NOTHING much will stick, as Mr Sheen is loaded with silicon.:mad:

Best you can hope for now is to try going over it with like our Polish Reviver which will help remove most of the silicon, then give it a go with Traditional Wax. You won't get a brilliant shine but, hopefully it will bring up a much brighter sheen and theoretically it shouldn't fall off.

No guarantees but it should work better than anything else

Cheers - Neil :)
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