Soda Blasting And Sanding A Table

One day a friend of a friend texted me with a picture of this table and asked if I wanted it. She was getting ready to move out of town and they couldn’t take the table with them. It took me a millisecond to say, “ABSOLUTELY, YES”!!! Then I asked Trav if he could pick it up. #poorTrav

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I love old clawfoot tables! I refinished an old coffee table recently that looks like it has a monster feet on it, and I love it!!!

I knew I wanted to sand the whole thing down and refinish it. I still am not sure as to what color stain to use, or glaze, or if I just want to bleach it.

I used two different sand to sand the top of the table. The table is so huge and it was taking quite a while to sand down with my other sander that I have, so I bought two more for try out.

I have to say I’m very impressed with both of these sanders. The orbital sander worked great but was taking a while as well. It worked so good to finish off the job after I was then done using the belt sander, below.

The belt sander is super aggressive and takes a little more muscle power but it worked great to strip off the stain off of the the top of the table so much quicker! It does strip off some of the wood, but I didn’t mind as it was solid wood and that’s what sanders do anyways. It also did leave areas that I couldn’t get to as well, so that’s where the orbital sander was great to use after I was done with the belt sander.

Now, for the tough part…I knew I wasn’t going to be able to get into all of these small areas, even with my Dremel. I decided to soda blast it!

Soda blasting is a mess! There is a white covering of what looks like snow all over everything when finished. It’s always so worth it when dealing with these small decorative areas! It gets in all of the tiny grooves so well! It’s worth all the mess and being covered and looking like an abominable snowman when done!

I think I’m always the most tired of all when completing soda blasting! It’s very draining even though you are just holding a hose to blast off the stain. Maybe it has to do with our heat here in AZ, but it’s so tiring! I have also used it on paint, but it was milk paint so it came off super easy. I’ve tried it on other paint and it didn’t work as well with my soda blaster, but I’ve seen others use soda blasters on paint before too. I have more about soda blasting paint and stain, in this post.

It took me quite a few hours to get the entire bottom half soda blasted! But, like I said, it was worth it! It’s such a nice way to be able to get all of the stain out of the parts that I can’t get to with my other sanders!

This table has seven leaves! It’s going to be ginormous! I pulled the table apart so that I could get to the middle post with my soda blaster as well.

You can see how the table still has a slight yellowy hue. I want to do something to try to fix that. It’s pretty, but it would look super yellow against all of my brown tone furniture and it would stick out like a sore thumb. I would love to use some wood bleach on it if I could get my hands on some. I can never find the zinsser wood bleach here in AZ.

I love seeing all of the gorgeous character under the stain after soda blasting!

You can see there is still soda blasting medium in parts that I need to get it out of before refinishing it, but the hardest job is done!

It’s such a beautiful table! I can’t wait until it’s finished so I can show the previous owners. She said she’s dying to see it when it’s finished.