7 Attachment(s)
Silky oak side board rescue out of order
I decided recently that I just need to get my stripping and finishing skills up to speed first so this is one of my practice projects. It has obviously been left to the elements and came with a broken leg and anther broken foot. It sort of reflects me these days :) I have been practising my scraping on it wit a new scraper type (pretty happy to finally be improving this skill) then orbital sander followed by hand sanding. I run a few sanders that get connected to a Festool vacuum to keep the dust down (pity the hand sander didn't have a vacuum port :) ).
I also have been practising cutting and installing new runners on the drawers and this has been going well when I have the right nail gun ready. As some runners need heights that aren't readily purchased I have had to cut my own wood but know I need a safer way that hand a push stick. I was finally happy to use my #4 $20 plane for some smoothing and reduction of new runner materials.
For a temporary leg I took some recovered packing wood (pine). I cut to full height of the original leg and then cut out a corner lengthwise so that it looked like an "L" in section view. This was then nail gunned to the original broken leg. As fr the other broken ankle it's a temporary cut of wood under it. As I now have a cheap lathe (maybe too cheap when the time comes ) I'll look to rebuild replacement back legs later.
I'm not expecting great things from this but it has been some fun with the practising. Later I may actually pull it a apart to re-glue the dowels. For now I'm getting some badly needed practice and it will stop taking up workshop space. Next steps will be deciding to stain or not and then applying some satin poly (not good enough for me to spend time with French polishing :) ). I'll post more photo's as I progress.
Attachment 432630Attachment 432631Attachment 432634Attachment 432635Attachment 432636Attachment 432632
Top with front sanded and rear original mess
Front carcass with the temporary pine leg at rear left
Front with smaller drawers and one door. The plyboard on the front had to be removed as the original was far too deteriorated for my skills.
The stains in the top are causing me to think of finally using stain (haven't started learning this skill yet)
Drawer fronts show the grain I like showing off
Sorry it is upside down but I tried uploading several times and it kept flipping it. The bottom drawer need plyboard base added and then the runners in the carcass fixed.
It will be good to go back later and pull apart to re-glue.
Oh the sideboard cost me $20 which I thought was OK just for the wood and the pre-made drawers and doors which is how I look at these things at the start.
Looking good and a few quick comments/opinions
Yes, Northern Silky Oak can have some wonderful figure.
May I please encourage you, when working on old furniture, to avoid the polyurethane forever and stick to shellac? You do not need to French Polish if that is troubling you, as even a very fine lacquer brush with 'nasty' (personal opinion) orange flake shellac is better than poly IMHO. At least it is easily reversible and does not need to be sanded off. (Also, French Polishing is not really difficult and brown button shellac is much more forgiving because of its high wax content).
That is the same reason that I encourage all restoration projects to use hide glue. For one it adheres to old hide glue very well and better than any modern adhesive will. Second, it can be so easily reversed with hot water that one never needs to fear stuffing up - just reverse with hot water and try again - no other adhesive can do as well!
Personal opinions expressed, not scientific certainty
Hi Nick,
I buy my brown button shellac from Shines (shines.com.au) and have never had any problems with it. The hard buttons seem to last forever, which is just as well since I do not use much of it these days. As it is the raw form of the shellac the buttons contain a lot of rubbish that has to be filtered out, but you end up with a high-wax shellac that takes a great final wax (high-carnauba content wax furniture polish) really well. I do admit that this is just a personal opinion of mine - many others prefer the flakes or even the ready-made shellacs such as UBeaut polishes (and I do use the latter for some new items, just not for old furniture). The owner of these forums is much more knowledgeable than I am on the subject. I started using brown button shellac in restoring pre-1850s Australian cedar pieces because it gave the best match for the small patches I was doing, and have stuck with it for all old furniture.
By-the-way, what is the section size for the legs? I may have some square-section very old, dry, Northern Silky oak pieces that would suit. I have my NSO in storage for the most part so would have to travel to check. If you can find (or I have) suitable square section but you can't turn them yourself (or get someone else to do it) you could use square section for the rear legs - there is historical precedent for different shaped front and back legs so turned front legs and square back legs might work for you. A good, long scarf joint to the original corner post/leg should be strong enough.
My exhortations about using hide glue do not extend to new structural joins btw, only for re-gluing old joints that were originally made with hide glue. It's still true that hide glue gives a good strong joint and has the advantage of reversibility, but it may be (I'm lacking scientific evidence here) that a modern high-strength pva like Titebond III could give a stronger and more secure leg join for instance - as long as your woodworking skills are up to making a perfect join first time as there is no reversing such a joint.
Oooops .. previous post failed :)
Thanks Rob for that great information but gees you got me excited seeing those great antiques :)
Can you suggest any book titles to help me with my education?
Cheers,
Nick
I recommend a tablespoon of oxalic acid dissolved in water will bleach out stains
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Blackout
I decided recently that I just need to get my stripping and finishing skills up to speed first so this is one of my practice projects. It has obviously been left to the elements and came with a broken leg and anther broken foot. It sort of reflects me these days :) I have been practising my scraping on it wit a new scraper type (pretty happy to finally be improving this skill) then orbital sander followed by hand sanding. I run a few sanders that get connected to a Festool vacuum to keep the dust down (pity the hand sander didn't have a vacuum port :) ).
I also have been practising cutting and installing new runners on the drawers and this has been going well when I have the right nail gun ready. As some runners need heights that aren't readily purchased I have had to cut my own wood but know I need a safer way that hand a push stick. I was finally happy to use my #4 $20 plane for some smoothing and reduction of new runner materials.
For a temporary leg I took some recovered packing wood (pine). I cut to full height of the original leg and then cut out a corner lengthwise so that it looked like an "L" in section view. This was then nail gunned to the original broken leg. As fr the other broken ankle it's a temporary cut of wood under it. As I now have a cheap lathe (maybe too cheap when the time comes ) I'll look to rebuild replacement back legs later.
I'm not expecting great things from this but it has been some fun with the practising. Later I may actually pull it a apart to re-glue the dowels. For now I'm getting some badly needed practice and it will stop taking up workshop space. Next steps will be deciding to stain or not and then applying some satin poly (not good enough for me to spend time with French polishing :) ). I'll post more photo's as I progress.
Attachment 432630Attachment 432631Attachment 432634Attachment 432635Attachment 432636Attachment 432632
Top with front sanded and rear original mess
Front carcass with the temporary pine leg at rear left
Front with smaller drawers and one door. The plyboard on the front had to be removed as the original was far too deteriorated for my skills.
The stains in the top are causing me to think of finally using stain (haven't started learning this skill yet)
Drawer fronts show the grain I like showing off
Sorry it is upside down but I tried uploading several times and it kept flipping it. The bottom drawer need plyboard base added and then the runners in the carcass fixed.
It will be good to go back later and pull apart to re-glue.
Oh the sideboard cost me $20 which I thought was OK just for the wood and the pre-made drawers and doors which is how I look at these things at the start.
oxalic is brilliant. If the stains are iron based (rust) then a similar brew of citric acid will remove those. Oxalic is used to clean newly laid brickwork so the hardware should have it. Citric is with the food colours in the supermarket as it's used in jam making. The oxalic will also refresh the tannins in the timber giving new life. Use before sanding, will save lots of work. I was once a professional restorer.
