Restoring an old vintage desk

Before                             After!

This old vintage desk had accumulated a lot of scratches, scuffs and damaged areas from wear over the years. It's a great heavy wooden desk with lots of character which made it enjoyable to restore. It is unique as there are shelves and a drawer on one side and seven drawers on the opposite side.

The sides had some rubbed areas and dents.

The drawers had worn rubbed areas and scratches from use over the years. 

I used Minwax's Antique Furniture Refinisher, a finish remover, to take off the old yellowed topcoat. ... After removing the topcoat, I cleaned the surface of the wood with mineral spirits.
 (Tung oil is used after the staining is complete.)

 When sanding wooden furniture, I always sand by hand instead of using an electric sander; it takes longer, but the results are worth it.

After hand-sanding the desk top with both 120 and 220 grit sandpaper, I used mineral spirits again to clean, and then applied the stain. ... Between layers of stain, I used 400 grit sandpaper to lightly sand to a very smooth surface.

Next, I used tung oil over the stain, rubbing the wood with 400 grit sandpaper between the layers.

Now the old vintage desk has retained its original character and looks clean, shiny and refreshed. ... For a finished look and to protect his desktop, the homeowner had me order a tinted tempered glass sheet.

Using tempered glass is a good choice for the top of a desk because it is a type of safety glass processed by controlled thermal or chemical treatments to increase its strength compared with normal glass. Tempering puts the outer surfaces into compression and the inner surfaces into tension. ... 

The glass piece had to be cut slightly smaller than the size of the surface area because of the curved edges.