Oiling the Sofa Table

The only real difference between what I'm doing to this sofa table and my normal method of 'Finish Reviving' is that I'm adding colour to the oil mixture. The reason I'm adding the colour is because the table is covered with scratches. Light scratches would be fixed by a coat of normal 'reviver', but some of the scratches on this table are downright huge - bordering on being gouges. They need some colour. I've spent a couple of days playing with commercial solutions, like finishing pens and even wax sticks and nothing has worked very well, quite frankly. At least, nothing has worked better than the cheap solution that I'm going to outline below.

I start with mineral spirits to wipe the piece down with. As I will get into later, I should have spent more time wiping the piece down. Or at least, I should have paid more attention when I was wiping the piece down. If there are problems that show up when you wipe on the mineral spirits then deal with them now rather than later. After wiping down the piece with mineral spirits I add boiled linseed oil to the mineral spirits left in the container. I want a rich mixture (more oil than mineral spirits) because in this case I added a good, solid slurp of wood stain, and since the stain is thin it will replace some of the mineral spirits. As long as the stain is not water-based it will mix right in. I just grabbed the darkest stain that I had and dumped some in. I ended up with some dark finish reviver as seen below:
I then used a clean rag to generously apply the oil mixture to the table. I have a piece of hardboard protecting my bench from drips and whatnot, because I want to be able to slop this stuff on with gay abandon. Get it in all the nooks and crannies. I saved the left-over reviver in a jam jar because after it dries I'll be looking for spots on the table that didn't get dark enough.
I've already noticed an area that I should have spotted while I was wiping the piece down with mineral spirits - a spot of adhesive of some sort. If I had noticed it in time then I could have saved myself some grief. As it is I'll have to strip that spot, then remove the adhesive, then apply the oil again, and wipe it down again. Ah well. Here's the table as it stands right now. I didn't oil the top because I'm going to refinish the top completely - it's too badly damaged and needs to be scraped.
Here's the table with the oil mixture slopped on. I had it upside down for convenience, and I used a corner of the rag to push the oil mixture into the 'decorative grooving'. After the 10 or 15 minutes, I'll wipe off the excess, and...
Here it is. It's looking a LOT better. The vast majority of the problems that it had have been sufficiently camouflaged by the oil mixture. Some of the really big chips need a bit more colour, and I'll get to that in a future posting. Right now I have to wait for this thing to dry over night.
A hint I'd like to pass along is to also pay attention when you're wiping the extra oil off. It's not that hard to miss a spot, and you don't want that, because the oil will take forever to dry when it's that thick, and it will dry with a dimpled orange-peel finish. If you catch it after a day and try to wipe it off then it will be sticky and it will grab the cloth and things will be unpleasant. Use a rag damp with mineral spirits to sort the problem out, then you'll have to wait for it to dry again.

Oh, and don't leave rags wet with linseed oil piled up in a garbage can. Although it's quite rare it's possible for oily rags to spontaneously combust, and linseed oil is famous for that. Leave the rags spread out on the bench and they will dry over night. Once the rags are dry they can be safely thrown in a garbage can.

Fixing a Dull Finish

This is by far the easiest repair to make to a finish. You have two general options, though it's best to do both.
The first option is a coat of wax. Regular paste wax can do wonders for a finish, and properly applied it will give the finish a small amount of additional protection. If you use a dark paste wax on dark furniture then it will help to hide small scratches and whatnot, as well.
The second option, and the one that I prefer as a first step, is to revive the finish by cleaning and oiling it. You can buy commercial "Finish Reviver" liquids, but essentially you can get that effect with mineral spirits and linseed oil.
Take this old drawer, seen below. I was given an old dresser by a lady I worked with. It's a beautiful old thing. Hand-cut dovetails on the drawers, and good, thick burl veneer on the solid faces. It's good, honest furniture. It also looks like it hasn't gotten any love for a long, long time. I've had it for over a year and I know I haven't given it any. Sure, it does a fine job of keeping my underwear off the floor, but it's dull and un-distinguished looking.
Now, look again at that drawer. That washed out look comes from exposure to UV rays (sunlight). A dead giveaway is that the finish is darker and more 'lively' where it's in the lee of the drawer pull... the light must have been coming from the right hand side for most of the dresser's life. This dark spot gives me my first inkling of what the drawer should look like.

I'm going to revive the finish on this one drawer face. First I take a bit of mineral spirits and pour it into a container. I rub the finish in an inconspicuous spot. Why? If the finish was french polish (shellac) then the mineral spirits would take the finish right off. That's not what I want! So I check to see if I can rub any brown off of the finish with straight mineral spirits. Nope. It's probably coated with a cellulose lacquer. Okay, so I wipe the drawer face down with mineral spirits and that helps to remove dirt and prepare the surface. Now I add boiled linseed oil to the bowl. I want at least 25% linseed oil, but 50% wouldn't be a problem. You could make yourself a container of 'reviver' with 25% linseed oil and 75% mineral spirits. I should do that, but I haven't bothered yet. Now I wipe the mixture onto the drawer front. I leave it pretty thick because I'm going to wipe off the excess after 10 minutes, and I'll give it a good buff with a clean cloth. After it dries over night it's good to go.
I put the drawer back into the dresser so you can play 'spot the drawer'. Can you guess which one has the 'revived finish'?
That drawer is looking pretty sweet. Now I have to do the rest of them, 'cause it looks funny.

I sincerely hope the lady who gave me this dresser doesn't read this blog, otherwise she'll be on my doorstep with a shotgun trying to get it back!

Since it's my dresser so it doesn't have to go back to some anxious relative, I'll give the oil a whole week to really dry, and then I'll wax the piece using a dark wax. It's a 'belt and suspenders' thing. The waxing can be done with the drawers in place (and still full of clothes) but you'd be best off emptying the drawers to do the oiling.

This whole job took about 15 minutes to do, and that included waiting 10 minutes for the oil to 'set' before I wiped it off. Doing the whole dresser would probably take 20 minutes. It would be best to stand the dresser on a cloth - if you drip oil on your floor you'll regret it, though it can be cleaned up easily (before it dries) with mineral spirits.
Don't oil the insides of drawers or furniture - it takes forever to dry and it will smell funny until it does.

I'll put another post up about waxing in particular.