Wormley Dunbar coffee table finish ideas?  

You are right spanky, it can be nerve racking. You can really feel under pressure. You need to be fast, and, at the same time, accurate with

I'll keep you all posted, for sure. Meanwhile, I still can't find another example of this damned table. Not that it's terribly important, but I'd really like to see some, just out of curiosity. I know very little about Dunbar furniture.

Thanks to sebastian for the photoshopping, and for so many good ideas and experiences, well expressed. I have no trouble seeing this piece in the more-contrasting colors. And yes, I would think of applying the top-coat to one color before staining (or dying) the other.

A really helpful if time-consuming step would involve making one or more sample panels of the same species, to try your colors and application techniques -- including the separation of colors, and the subsequent flattening of the top-coat at the transition line -- of course. Dyes sound to me like they would be more likely to migrate under the neighboring top-coat, making a fuzzy seam ?

I will report. again, that I've been doing some table-top finishing with oil-based polyurethane, where I apply satin poly with a foam roller and immediately brush out bubbles, etc. Between each coat I sand (carefully) with 220 on a good flat orbital sander, to flatten and deal with any specks. For the same reason I sand the final coat as well, then get it to a nice satin with steel wool. All of this is to achieve a spray-quality durable finish with no spray equipment or even a proper finish area; I work outdoors, mostly.

There was a post, I don

Aha . . .

So, it isn't like you'd be bastardizing a classic by dying or staining it; it's been pre-bastardized !

The site is not letting me upload any pictures, but here are the links to some other pieces that have the same handles and combination of woods. I guess that if i could find it, you may have seen it already, but... just in case.

https://www.wright20.com/auctions/2008/04/modern-design/433?search=dunbar

https://www.wright20.com/auctions/2008/04/modern-design/435?search=dunbar

https://www.wright20.com/auctions/2008/04/modern-design/434?search=dunbar

in one of them reads:

" literature: Edward Wormley: The Other Face of Modernism, Gura, Kennedy and Weinberg, pg. 25"

Again, just in case there is something interesting there.

Ah. Most useful. Now we recognize the Asian (Chinese) basis of this group ? Very suave . . .