I am trying to decide if I want to do three or four coats.
The thing about lacquer is that the more coats you do, the deeper and more wonderful the finish. See any really nice guitar for evidence. However lacquer is one of those things that rapidly reaches a point of diminishing returns, because with each layer, the more brittle it can become also, and it's not easily repairable. That is to say in simple terms, the more layers of lacquer you have, the more likely it becomes that if you whack the piece with your vacuum, the finish will crack all the way down to the base coat and there is *no way* to easily repair that short of major work.
Generally one does an odd number of coats when doing brushable finishes because of the way the coats are applied (this way your first and last coats go with the grain of the wood.)
Yeah. Three coats will be enough. I just need to make sure that last coat is *really* thorough.
ETA: Not sure if three will do it. Will need to see how it looks when this one dries. I might go to five.
If you're going to use lacquer, wear a respirator.
Seriously.
No, really. I mean that. Lacquer (and especially lacquer thinner) is REALLY nasty and shouldn't be used if you don't know what you're doing in a big way.
Argent is completely fascinated with the fish tank.
Though it looks split, it's actually quite securely glued. The split is the result of wood shrinkage, but it's totally structurally sound.
Now, I *could* make this seam invisible. I could totally fill and sand it no one would ever know it had been there. But this table really does have history. It's not a reproduction. It's an original, and as such I don't think it's right to fix an ordinary sign of age. The table *isn't* new. It's almost 60 years old. So I'm going to leave this be. So long as it's not affecting the structural stability of the table, it stays.