I have a rosewood square grand to refinish and have been considering subbing it out. Got a few estimates. Gave one guy the music desk to refinish so that he could provide me with an example of his work. My general experience with the quality of refinishers has largely been whether they rub out the final finish or not, and how well they remove any orange peel, etc. I picked up the music desk at this shop yesterday. Looking at it in his shop it looked nice. Not rubbed out, but a nice smooth satin finish. Something looked a bit funny about it, but I told him it looked good. Got back to my shop and compared it to a piece of rosewood I had applied some tung-oil-based varnish to. OhmyGod. What a difference. His piece was milky - it looked like it was finished with 2% fat milk rather than varnish or laquer. Horrible, horrible, horrible. You could see the rosewood grain, but it was translucent rather than transparent. I had never seen anything like it. They guy would not disclose his product used or his methods. I would kind of like to know - just so I avoid ever wasting my time with it. FWIW - make sure you see (and preferably can keep) a sample of your refinisher's work. Looks like time for another wrestling match with refinishing! Terry Farrell
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