Buzzy Bar Top Re-Done

For some time now JW Raley has wanted to re-do the Buzzy bar top.  He first installed it in 2012 and thru the years as it has gotten scuffed up, he was not pleased with how his 5 coats of poly did not hold up.  He would repeatedly tell me “J. Scott, we got to do something about about this bar top.”

However, I kind of liked the bar appearing a little beat up and ridden hard.  It didn’t bother me as much as it bothered JW.   I would always tell him that it was fine, don’t worry about it.  But still, it bugged him.

Moreover though there was another reason I didn’t particularly want to mess with it and that was because I did not want to deal with the hassle of doing it while still being open every day.  We would have to clean up each day before folks came in and then worry about the fumes and if the top was drying properly and ensure folks did not put items on the wet surface etc..  It just seemed too much of a hassle to try and undertake given the circumstances.

Well, we all know how that being open concern went away courtesy of  the “nothing to worry about/got it contained” flu don’t we?  Knowing that Buzzy’s would be closed for some time,  I told John “Let’s go for it.”  He advised me to order the product Wisebond which he had never used but had heard good things about.

So last week we started by sanding and stripping off what was left of those previous 5 coats of polyurethane that John had done before.  Initially, he wanted to take the wood back to a completely natural, unstained look and then re-stain it.  However, after cleaning off the poly and doing some light sanding we decided to leave it as is without further sanding, re-staining etc.. Here is a photo of the bar stripped down and pre-epoxy.

Because JW had never worked with this Wisebond product before, he fretted and worried his way throughout the finsihing process.  Photo here of him brushing on what they call the seal coat.

March 30 – Last Day Buzzy’s Was Open

The seal coat looked so good that JW immediately was pleased, or let’s say as pleased as he can be when doing a project, with how it came out.  He was talking about re-stripping the seal coat off and re-sanding the wood down some more if the seal coat did not look right.  (To say that the boy is  perfectionist is a little bit of an understatement.)