Cigar Band Coffee Table (Complete Project Recap)

[Mark THS]

I happened to be reorganizing some past photos and I came across a folder that I thought would be a great share. I believe I posted this project to Club Stogie a few years back, but with so many new faces, I thought I would share them here.

The concept for this project was spawned mostly out of wanting to foray into woodworking, but at the same time I started planning this project, my brother began building a cigar room in his basement. This quickly turned into a gift for him.

I started the project with a hunt for a neglected antique coffee table. At the time, I was living in Michigan, so the market for great antique furniture is relatively abundant. I was able to locate a petite chippendale style coffee table on Craigslist. The condition was terrible, having been painted lime green sometime many years ago. I wish I had snapped a picture of the table when I bought it- but you'll just have to take my word when I say that this table was in horrible shape. I spent about $60 to purchase it- rough shape, but the tooling marks gave me a good indication that this piece was probably a 1920-1930 era pieces, so at the time it felt like a good deal.

I first started snapping pictures midway through the stripping process of the wood.

Notice the lime green paint on the foot of the table and all of the detail elements that were filled with paint.



I used a fairly common hardware store gel stripper to remove the paint. This meant covering the piece, letting the paint bubble up, and gently scrapping it off.



You can see some of the gel stripper in the picture below. Stinky and messy, but very effective.


I snapped the picture below to show the tedious parts of stripping claw-and-ball feet. There were quite a few hand carved details that werent apparent until the paint had been removed


(continued in the next post)