I have the opportunity to pick up a 9' Brunswick Anniversary that I used to play on when I was in college. It's in great playing shape but there are a ton of circular dings in the tops of the rails (which I believe are walnut). I can get repro skirts/blinds and anything else that might be needed but how difficult will it be to refinish those rails? It seriously looks like someone attacked them w/a ball. I've heard that belt sanding can fix it but I would prefer to raise the dings as much as possible and sand as little as possible.
Refinishing dinged up rails
- Thread starter Endymion
- Start date
MrWrestlingII
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I recently purchased an Anniversary and refinished the rails. I would not recommend using a belt sander as it is difficult to control the amount of material you are removing in any given spot. The walnut on the rails is maybe 3/16 of an inch thick, I don't have one available to measure right now but can later this evening. Sanding them by hand was not difficult. I started with 60 grit and then 100, 150 and 220. Not sure how you would go about raising the dents though.
Sanding
I refinished an antique with walnut rails last year. I used one of those black and decker mouse sanders. It's just a small hand held detail type sander. It just vibrates, so you don't accidentally take off a bunch of wood like a belt sander would. It worked perfect for this.
I refinished an antique with walnut rails last year. I used one of those black and decker mouse sanders. It's just a small hand held detail type sander. It just vibrates, so you don't accidentally take off a bunch of wood like a belt sander would. It worked perfect for this.
It's a timely process, but like raising the dents on a cue shaft, take a wash rag, dip the corner of it in water, apply the wet corner to the dent on the top of the rail, take a hot iron, apply the tip of it right on the wet corner of the cloth. What this does is force the wood to absorb the moisture from the cloth, and when doing that, it causes the wood to swell, and when it swells up, it'll raise the dent up slowly. Just keep repeating the process, until most of the dent has been raised back to level as much as possible. Then you can refinish the rails with less effects from the dents.
Glen
Glen