Tea Table Creation?
This is probably a serious longshot, but what can it hurt? I am currently redoing an antique table into a tea table, complete with a drain and all that good stuff. But I have run into a bit of a wall…what do I use for varnishing this beasty?
I have learned from past experience that a waterproof varnish is not enough, sure the beads of water and tea just roll off, but the heat turns the varnish nasty shades of white and causes warping (the reason why my tea tray has a towel on it, bah)
I know there has to be a thing that gets used, and maybe some of you crafty people can point me in the right direction?
Have you asked CLT? Glen made one recently.
I did on instagram but he did not reply…maybe it is a trade secret?
Oh for the love of…he did reply, I just didn’t get the notification!! Ugh, clearly I need more tea before I try to post things hehe
Apparently Tung Oil works best
I do have a problem with IG notifications and some posts. they appear out of nowhere and i thought they werent there hehe. its not lack of tea, its IG hiccups
BTW do you know I was on Blacklist on Steepster. I wouldnt receive any notifications or messages for more than a month 00
I sealed my tea table with clear polyurethane. After it was used gently for a few months I decided to have a go with setting hot stuff and spilling directly on it and it’s held up perfectly to over a year of abuse :-)
Lucky!! I am not sure what is wrong with mine, my mom took a beautiful vintage wooden tray with inlay of different kinds of wood and gave it like a million coats of poly and kept it at her place for months before I visited…we were both very unhappy to see that as soon as it gets hot water or hot tea gear on it, it turns ugly white.
You can also wax or oil it occasionally and forgo the finish. Any oil will work, really. How often do you drink the rinse? :P
If I drink the rinse I have learned not to pour it on the table…it is a good way to get extra cat fuzzies :P
I like the idea of waxing or oiling over finish…I loathe the smell of poly, even if I do it outside with a painters mask I still hate it!
I use wood cutting board oil, in case I drink the rinse. And I have used olive oil on my bamboo cutting boards for a decade. I also have Tung Oil which is the best, but it is stinky and only for items that I won’t be eating or drinking off of. Oil needs to be reapplied every so often, not so much in the summer but definitely in dry winter. Bamboo especially will crack if not oiled often.
As for wax, plain ole beeswax or soy wax warmed and rubbed in by hand and buffed with a cloth is what I use on small items. On my regular furniture I use a liquid wax. TV commercials make much of wax build-up but only idiots use wax sprays constantly. In reality they only need to be used once a year.
Just started using me new homemade tea table https://instagram.com/p/9UTm1zTPaO/
We used linseed oil (MANY coats) because the surface is poly’d metal and I will pour my rinse into my cha hai if I intend to drink it!
Oh man that is one sleek looking tea table. Even cooler is the fact that it’s made from salvaged material!
It’s salvaged because I’m a poor grad student and just couldn’t dedicate the cash for a tea table of even just ok quality, so he decided to make me one for cheap! I love it very much, especially the washers, since they capture his metalworking hobby nicely in something that I actually use!
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