French polishing

[Flippetydip]

We purchased an antique dining table yesterday for the princely sum of £10. It needs a proper job done on the polish. We've someone coming round to give us a quote on Wednesday but I've no idea how much we should even be thinking about. Does anyone know how much it's likely to be? For idea it's a 6 seater oval table with a middle section that takes it up to an 8 seater - or thereabouts.

I can't advise you on the costs, but I have got white heat marks out of a French polished table and a cabinet myself using an iron and a cotton pillowcase! I was able to sell it for a decent amount afterwards.

Wowfudge can you explain how?

I googled how to remove heat marks from a French polished table and found very detailed instructions: you need something cotton you can fold over - a pillowcase or tea towel, that kind of thing. Put the iron on low with no steam. It's needs to be hot enough that you can put your hand on the sole plate for 20-30 seconds before you have to remove it. With my iron that wasn't the lowest heat. You then sit the iron on top of your folded cotton cloth over the heat mark and leave it. It's supposed to work best to do it slowly. The gentle heat draws the moisture out and the cotton absorbs it. Once I realised I wasn't going to burn the place down, I left it to do its thing and checked every twenty minutes or so - turning the iron up as necessary. On some marks I found a slightly higher heat worked better.

We have a marked boardroom table at work which I'm tempted to try it on.

Sadly it's scratches rather than heat marks so is going to need a good going over.

It worked! thank you so much wowfudge: ten minutes with an iron and then a good polish has got the table pristine! It hasn’t looked this good for years! Thank you so much

@Habanero - that's great! I found that where I hadn't been so patient I had to go over the area again a couple of weeks later but the marks haven't come back a couple of years down the line. Unlike ring remover cloths, etc this actually gets rid of the moisture instead of disguising it.