Caroline S

I would use sewing machine oil to remove the old masking tape. And a lot of patience. Let the oil soak into the tape, wipe down and repeat and keep repeating. As far as re-finishing the table, I would lightly sand it and then refinish it without trying to remove it's "tattoos". It is vintage after all and the tattoos are a record of it's unknown history.

mighty

Congrats great find!

BillieJean

Great deal..I bought one last year..with table. It was real clean and the machine was gone over and serviced. I paid 275.

ArchaicArcane

Re: the broken spring in the bobbin case, I posted this back in March. I'm assuming this is the spring you're referring to, not the tension spring:
http://www.archaicarcane.com/spring-has-sprung/

gramquilter2

Wow, lucky find. Have fun with it.

Linda - K.

I got an old FW table off ebay. It was not in good shape but good price (I was having a lot of problems with people outbidding what I could afford at the time I found this one for $79). It had a lot of duct tape keeping the insert in place. I did have to find screws to fix the insert area where the metal frame/pieces were and then I did a lot of sanding on the top to get the tape gummy stuff off. I was very careful about sanding as the top is veneer. I just smoothed out the chipped out areas very carefully. Then I stained and used polyurathane (sp?) on the top and painted sides with black semi-gloss latex enamel. I think it turned out pretty good from the original condition. Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

NJ Quilter

If the sanding on the table is smooth, try just some tung oil or butchers paste polish. As someone else mentioned, why worry about the 'tatoos'...it is vintage, why try to hide that fact. Might need to do a light sanding to clean it up a bit, then wipe with tack cloth to get the bits of grit off the table.

SMR

Sounds weird but to remove tape gunk try mayonnaise. I was told this trick when I had to remove a lot of duct tape gunk with marring the finish. I don't think I'd do this on wood but works well on metal. To finish the top and sides of the table since it'a already stripped I'd give it a very light sanding, wipe with tack cloth and to blend in the oil stains use wood stain to stain top and apply two coats of matte finish.

Cecilia S.

Regarding mayonnaise; when I hear of a "household item" solution like this, I think, okay, what is it in the item (mayonnaise in this case) that is the active ingredient. So, for the mayo, is it the oil? The vinegar? Isolating the active ingredient and then just using it can be a much more efficient way of doing it. Honestly, not that it is a big deal to use up some mayo on your sewing machine - but in general, I think it is better to know what it is you're after, and use just that thing.

I think, based on what others here are saying, that in the case of the mayo, it is the oil that you want to isolate.

I think of people buying a cleaning product for $5.00, with the magic syllables 'oxy' in it... and guess what? Probably fifty cents' worth of peroxide would have done the task.

Just my cheapskate's $.02 worth. But SMR, I'm not criticizing your suggestion - it is quite interesting to me, actually! :-)

ArchaicArcane

The first thing that usually goes through my mind is: Man that's going to smell awful if any is left behind and it,... uh,.... ages.