Is this water-damaged timber benchtop salvageable?

[deltoraquest]

Our kitchen bench has quite bad water damage. There is a second bench opposite that remains in relatively good condition so it would be nice to somehow restore this one but i appreciate unlikely. Is it in any way salvageable? Would we have to paint it? Or is even that not likely achievable and should we be looking at new benches? 

Thanks for your help! 

 

 

[OG_Bee]

I think you could with a little tlc get it back to looking as new, it may involve removing the sink and the tap though to ensure you could sand and remove the molded wooden surface. Do you remember what the bench was coated in originally? As it may require a little more effort sanding it back if it was an epoxy coating.

A combination of a random orbital sander and a few sandpaper grades it would be fine to re coat in something like this https://www.bunnings.com.au/feast-watson-250ml-surface-restore_p0186436 which is super easy to apply and is quite forgiving on any blemishes you've missed.

I would suggest doing the whole bench top surface just so it all matches evenly.

I would give the bench opposite a light sand and coat in the same product and the two should look very close to matching again.

Have a chat with the paint specialist at your local Bunning's as they may have some other options for the finish coat. 

Check out How To Restore Furniture for some further guidance. 

[JacobZ]

Hi @deltoraquest,

Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community, it is wonderful to have you with us.

It's fantastic to see that @OG_Bee has already jumped in with some advice. I agree that it should be salvageable, but you'll definitely need to do some sanding. 

Unfortunately, I'm not confident that the Feast Watson Surface Restore would work in your case because, based on the discolouration you can see around the mould, it looks like you have a stained benchtop, and the sanding you would need to do to remove the mould would likely remove the stain, which the surface restore would not bring back.

You could certainly restore the benchtop, but if you don't know what the stain was, you would almost certainly have to sand the whole thing bare and then reapply a coating of your choice. This is because unless you know which stain was used, we would be playing a bit of a guessing game, and there are no guarantees we could get a close match to what is already there, so it is usually best to sand things bare, then start again.

If you'd like to give this a try, make sure you pop on a mask, then use a random orbital sander and start with some 80-grit sandpaper to strip back the current coating. You can then work up through the grits, using 120-grit, followed by 180-grit. 

This should give you a nice, smooth surface that can then be coated. I'd suggest using Cabot's Water Based Stain And Varnish in a colour of your choosing, followed by a coat of Cabots Clear Benchtop Timber Finish in a sheen of your choosing. This will allow you to colour the benchtop as desired, while adding the strong protection of a clear polyurethane coating.

Let me know what you think, and if you have further questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

Jacob