Dear All-I had a local shop make us a very large dining table from some nice cherry wood as my wood shop is not currently equipped with everything necessary to do this. This shop makes fairly "rustic" tables but does good work and I know they were giving significant attention to our table. When they delivered it, they were surprised as were we that there were some "dents" in the top. Admittedly, we have the brightest light you can have coming through our waterfront windows which show every dent, scratch, and piece of dust on wood. They said they didn't see them in their shop. They are very eager to fix the problem, but I want to identify why they occurred prior to trying to fix them.
I have attached some pictures that should show you a little about what I am talking about. If you run your hand across the table, they are not subtle. They are almost mini-craters in the table. Of note, they do all their sanding by hand....no large sanders. They plane the boards, join them with biscuits and glue, then hand sand. Also, they usually make tables out of pine so working with cherry is not their norm.
I was wondering if this is just poor sanding. But, at the same time, I'm not sure how you could create dents like this without a lot of effort!
Is there a problem with my wood? Does cherry have weak spots that cause this? The wood came from a very high quality place in PA that supplies high grade furniture quality wood. Some of the dents do cross seams so it isn't just an issue with specific boards.
Is this due to some kind of shrinkage? It is often located near places they put a very small amount of filler which leads me to believe they sanded it too much. But, could the filler have caused local contracture of the wood?
I would appreciate your thoughts. Also, any suggestions on how to fix it are appreciated. Is this simply something we can sand out with enough work or do we need a large sander or planer I can run across the entire top to fix the problem? Fortunately we still have 1&3/4" of stock on the top so have some wood to work with.
Any help is appreciated!
I have attached some pictures that should show you a little about what I am talking about. If you run your hand across the table, they are not subtle. They are almost mini-craters in the table. Of note, they do all their sanding by hand....no large sanders. They plane the boards, join them with biscuits and glue, then hand sand. Also, they usually make tables out of pine so working with cherry is not their norm.
I was wondering if this is just poor sanding. But, at the same time, I'm not sure how you could create dents like this without a lot of effort!
Is there a problem with my wood? Does cherry have weak spots that cause this? The wood came from a very high quality place in PA that supplies high grade furniture quality wood. Some of the dents do cross seams so it isn't just an issue with specific boards.
Is this due to some kind of shrinkage? It is often located near places they put a very small amount of filler which leads me to believe they sanded it too much. But, could the filler have caused local contracture of the wood?
I would appreciate your thoughts. Also, any suggestions on how to fix it are appreciated. Is this simply something we can sand out with enough work or do we need a large sander or planer I can run across the entire top to fix the problem? Fortunately we still have 1&3/4" of stock on the top so have some wood to work with.
Any help is appreciated!
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