Wood Care and Polishing Your Furniture
When your furniture has been hand polished with one of our polish based finishes, it is important to be able to keep up its good looks and protection, through re-polishing.
In the case of heavy kitchen use we would advise reapplying a coat of polish three or four times a year whereas a dining room table with more occasional use, would benefit from a couple of applications a year.
The reason that is necessary is that although we have applied the maximum level of protection possible by the deep impregnation of polish, during our week long hand-polishing process, to give the very finest and most tactile “in the wood” finish, the polish continues to be absorbed by the timber and therefore needs a “top up” on the surface to help minimise markings.
Also regular treatment of the table surface allows the timber to be finely sanded, which helps arrest the colour change through maturity and allows the table and flaps to remain more balanced in colour. Should you need to carry out a “patch sanding repair” from a deep spill, then surrounding areas colour will be closer to the repaired colour, and will rapidly settle down to be an equal colour.
Your furniture is supplied with a comprehensive polishing kit when you receive your solid furniture delivery. Our fully trained delivery team, who are craftsmen from our workshop, and who have actually been working on your furniture, will show you exactly what to do using solid timber panels so you can have a test sand and polish yourself, and see how to how to repolish yourself.
Cotton Cloth: having spread the polish evenly across the table top, then remove the surplus polish using the cotton cloth. Make a flat pad with the cotton cloth and then work rapidly up and down the table top with the grain removing the extra polish. Each “wipe” should half overlap the previous wipe so the cotton pad “skates across the surface” rather than being dragged by too much polish being left.
Wood Care Polishing Kit and instructions (pdf)
Do not try and re-polish a table on a hot sunny day as it will become sticky too quickly and be difficult to spread easily. Polish can thicken with age and its consistence should be like a good virgin olive polish.
Please store in a cool dark place as it will harden in the heat or sunlight, but expect it to harden anyway with age, possibly 2- 4 years, its easy to re-order more polish now on-line. Strawood and Parkwood polishs can be thinned with 10% white spirit if they do thicken, but not the Sandwood polish.
Before using the polish, gently shake the can and stir well, if contents have settled on the bottom of the can.
Then using a paint tray or other suitable container, use a paint pad or a cotton cloth to spread the polish out. Always safely dispose of cloths used for polishing as there is the slight possibility that they can combust, so always dispose of safely.
For larger or deeper tables polish one half of the table first before starting on the other side. Always re-fold the cloth to find new “dry areas” so that the polish is removed rather than just spread out.
The polish based polishing system has been developed in Scandinavia over many years, as one of the best systems available, however, you must accept that you have a risk of marking your table top with any polish based finish, although the re-polishing action will allow successful renovation.
Cloths that have been used must be disposed of safely as they contain flammable polish.
Re-polishing Service
Should you need to have your table professionally re-polished after 5 or 10 years of use, then we can arrange for your table to be re-sanded and re-polished by our skilled workshop polishers, who will always produce excellent results through our deep re-sanding process prior to re-polishing, bringing back your furniture to look almost like the day you bought it years ago.
Just give us a call at Berrydesign if you ever have any questions, or to book a re-polish
To order more Wood Polish please see our Polishes page.
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