african iron wood aka Wenge
Hi Bj.
well personally I dnot mind dishing out my hard earned knowledge as it means that, whatI do for a living and enjoy doing gets to be appreciated by others.
Now restoring wenge is a tricky job.
The wood responds very well to sanding put responds weirdly to oils / varnish.
Just finished the restoration of Bodil kjaers iconic desk, in wenge.
Firstly removed all the old varnish as this hads made the desk appear dark oak and hence why no one liked it.
Once clean of varnish i use a side edge to remove and deep seated varnish and followed on with sanding
240 / 280 / 320 / 400 grade.
Varnished using colourless and after polished to a "matt shine" sounds odd but a 95 yr old danish carpenter showed me how. and that shall remain my secret.
Once polished the table was oiled which drew in and made the grain look very deep and slightly more yellow brown than black brown.
Wenge can be very trick to repair as the wood fibre is very brittle and breaks like thin ice.
But dont shy away and give it a try.
Thats my bit of knowledge on the subject. And as mentioned Images are a bonus so here is the finished item.
