When I purchased my new band saw table last year it arrived with a beautiful steel table. Now it has stained due to the processing of green wood for turning. It is not etched, just stained, mostly by green maple.
I tried mineral spirits and steel wool with limited success.
What about very fine emery cloth and oil?
Anybody have any suggestions?
Try sudsy ammonia, and follow up with metal polish and/or paste wax. Oily is good for the metal, but won't touch sap.
If the staining is from sap, use alcohol. If you don't have any on hand, hand cleaner will work. See what I did there? :-)
A suggestion is to enjoy your saw and don't worry about it looking like you use it. Alternatively, Empire top restore.
Simple Green, Fantastic, Spray Nine, etc, and a green scrubby (like for pots and pans) and elbow grease. Same thing for your lathe bed. Dry off and apply wd-40, wax or what used to be called top cote. Don't remember new name. And if you think that maple stains try cherry :-) I use wd-40 on the lathe bed, but top cote on the bandsaw table.
Yeah I learned about cherry the hard way. Haven't used any walnut but have heard that it is sure to stain. Even hard on bare hands I have been told.
The worst I have seen is wet birch. It will etch unprotected steel in less than 24 hours.
I recently found 2 cans of a spray top cote sold by Shop Smith. They must be 20 years old. Haven't tried them yet.
Thanks for the post.
Do you want it to look pretty or work?
Empire used to make a product that would restore the finish with little effort.
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