A water stain on a wood tabletop is not a big deal, unless you have put the stain there. Then you can't wait to remove the evidence of your wrongdoing.
That is the situation I found myself in recently. First, I tried to remove the spot using a questionable method, attacking it with a hot iron. Then, I learned the recommended procedure: rubbing the stain with superfine steel wool and cream polish.
The trouble began when I placed a poinsettia plant, a symbol of hope, good cheer and beauty, on a wood table in our hallway. As a precaution I had put a dinner plate underneath the plant to protect the wood but that measure did not work. Instead, when the plant was watered, the bottom of the plate sweated and moisture descended into the wood. A large, white orb appeared on the tabletop, and a displeased expression appeared on my wife's face.
I grabbed the table and carried it down to the basement, my lair. There, after hastily consulting that source of occasionally accurate information, the Internet, I got the bright idea of attempting to remove the water stain by "ironing" it out. I put our household's iron on the dry (no steam) setting for cotton, I placed a cotton towel over the stain and I repeatedly moved the iron over the towel.
It worked. Sorta. After two hours of my ironing, most of the spot was gone. The remaining stain disappeared the next day when I applied a coating of tung oil to it.
I soon discovered that putting a hot iron on a wood table was not a professionally approved method of water-stain removal.
"No! No! No! You don't want to harm the finish," said J. Michael Flanigan, who appraises antiques, including fine furniture, for The Antiques Road Show, a series on public television. Too much heat could crack the surface of the wood.
I could envision Flanigan cringing as I told him, over the phone, of my basement escapade. Flanigan is a neighbor and a friend, and I got the feeling he was working hard not to insult me. After a pause, he said that using controlled heat or a mild abrasive to remove a water stain could work "if you know what you are doing."
Jim Adajian of Adajian & Nelson furniture refinishers in Clipper Mill also preached that one use caution before rushing into a stain-removal undertaking. "It is a tricky business," Adajian told me. "If the piece [of furniture] is valuable, you should get a professional opinion."
It turned out that the "piece" I had attacked with the iron cost about $50 and had come from a now-defunct furniture store. That was probably why my wife let me work on it.
A few days later, I learned the expert-approved method of removing a water stain from wood.
Frank Strovel, along with his son-in-law Jason Heckart, operates the Towne Stripper, a furniture-refinishing business on Harford Road in Carney. Strovel started the business in 1973, when he was a firefighter for Baltimore City. He retired from the Fire Department later in the 1970s.
I arrived at Strovel's business with a carload of damaged tables donated by colleagues at The Sun. Strovel looked them over but said most of them were too far gone to be resurrected by stain removal. Once the water rings on a tabletop turn dark, as many of these had, the wood usually needs to be stripped and refinished, he said.
So, he chose a leaf from his mahogany dining room table that had a ghostly water stain on it about the size of a baseball.
The stain-removal procedure is straightforward and the tools are minimal, he told me. He wet a pad of superfine-grade (0000) steel wool with a generous supply of cream furniture polish. He prefers the Oz brand because it doesn't contain silicones that can seep into the wood and complicate a later refinishing effort, he said. The idea is to keep the steel wool well-lubricated so it does not cut into the finish of the wood, he said.
Then, using moderate pressure, he rubbed the lubricated pad over the stain, going with the grain of wood. He repeated this procedure again and again, pausing from time to time to let the wood and himself rest.
"You can't be in a hurry," he said. "You let the haze [faint white cloud] rise, then go at it again."
It helps, he said, to have a lot of stories to tell. Strovel, an avid fisherman, had plenty of tales in his repertoire.
In between applications of the cream, he told of how he fooled a former firehouse buddy into eating a meal of catfish by telling him that the fish was "Susquehanna salmon."
He told of landing a great northern pike at O'Sullivan Lake, a spot in Quebec that he visited during the summer.
Several stories and about an hour later, the stain was gone. It had disappeared in increments. Strovel explained that heat, created by the friction of rubbing the steel-wool pad and cream on the wood, drew out the moisture. When the last vestige of the stain had faded, he applied the cream to the entire table leaf and rubbed it down with a soft cloth. This evened out the finish, he said.
The result was impressive; the mahogany table leaf glistened with no sign of its watery past.
I had to admit the steel-wool-and-story technique sure beat ironing.
rob.kasper@baltsun.com
THE PROPER TECHNIQUE
1. Eye the stain. If it is white, you have a chance to remove it. If it has turned dark, the table probably needs to be stripped and refinished.
2. Lubricate a super-fine (0000) steel-wool pad with a furniture cream polish that contains no silicone. (Two well-known brands are Oz and Howard.) Put some cream on the table as well.
3. Using moderate pressure, rub the wet pad on the stain, going with the grain of the wood. Pause, let a haze form and repeat the procedure, adding more polish. Stain removal is incremental. You keep going until the stain is gone.
4. Apply the polish to the rest of the wood surface and gently rub with a soft, clean cloth.
What you'll need
The tools required to rub water stains from furniture:
Steel-wool pads, superfine, grade (0000), about $4 for a package of 16.
Furniture cream polish without silicone. Oz brand is sold on various Web sites for about $9 a pint; Howard brand is available in area hardware stores for about $8 a pint.
A soft, clean cloth