OK, here's the table with the top refinished. Used an oil soap and Lemon Pledge to remove the dulling film from everything but the top.
Sanded to 220 to remove scratches and the circular stain. Stained with Minwax Honey and Jacobean stains mixed 50/50. That got the right amount of dark and the tinge of red. Applied two coats of Minwax oil base semi-gloss varnish. I should have also bought satin varnish; that was probably a closer match to the rest of the table. If I get tired of it, I'll knock the sheen down a bit with some Scotch Brite once the varnish is good and cured.
I'm quite pleased with what I have, for $43 and change. Well, glue and stain and varnish probably bring it to ~$100.
One thing bad- I told my son not raise any dust while the varnish was drying. Then I hear the garage door (rollup) opening but got there too late to stop it. He didn't think that the inside of the garage door was dusty. 🙄
My "shop" is a small section of a two-car garage, and there is dust everywhere. Oh, well, it sanded out. It is sitting in my "carving area", which used to be the dining area. I laid 1/4" AC plywood down to protect the laminate floors. At least I have a small bit more room to do the big stuff with the carving bench out of the way of the table saw...and I have a conditioned space for carving, now. 😁
Like every picture I've ever seen, this photo does no justice to the figure.
One thing left to do would be to put some HDPE strips on the bottoms of the drawers so that they will slide better.
That dark spot on the left side about 1/3 from the bottom edge of the picture appears to be stain from manufacturing, as the table appears to had nothing but use and cleaning in its life. I didn't bother to take it all the way off, just did some smoothing.
