DIY project: new finish for the dinner table

Finally I found the time to get the table done.

It's a nice mahogany table - but during the last 30 years or so its finish wore considerably off. There were scratches on it, water marks and also some small damages...

I bought a large can of 'Aceton' to remove the shellack finish and started to dissolve it through applying the aceton with a soft brush then scraping most of it off with a scraper and rubbing the rest off with a soft cloth. It worked fine but it is a bit tricky as you have to move very quickly. The shellack comes off like a thick liquid - almost like honey - and it's sticky like hell. I used up a good deal of cloth. After this, the table looked like this:

Then I sanded it down with fine sandpaper. Afterwards I cleaned the surface with warm water, let it dry a bit and applied a water based stain (mahogany coloured) with a sponge.

Unfortunately after drying it turned out to be quite blotchy, so we had to sand the surface down again. Same procedure again. After the second layer of the stain was dry it looked ok - so after letting it dry for a whole day we moved the table inside to apply the varnish. I chose a glossy finish from 'CLOU' (not water-based as this would have dissolved the water based stain) and applied it carefully with a roller and brush. First layer was not enough so after waiting 24 hours I applied the second layer.

Well. The result is ok - but I'm not totally happy. On one part of the table there are small blotches in the varnish - I have no idea why. They are small so it's ok for now. I think it would be necessery to sand the finish again very carefully and apply another layer but to be honest: at the moment I don't have the energy for that and we really missed the table so I'll postpone this until whenever :-)

I'm happy when I look at the table now and I'm glad to look at the wood and not having to cover it up because of the ugly scratches.