Chinese tea table resurrection

Partly driven by the need for social isolation ( = COMPULSORY shed time) , I am about to start restoration of this Chinese tea (or psaltery) table...

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It was a street find and so there will be no client wondering when, or even IF, it will be finished?
It has been horrifically treated by painting the top with what I suspect to be some kind of two-pack epoxy and the gaps (sort of) filled with bog!

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I suspect the construction will be similar to this illustration from my bible (Chinese Domestic Furniture by Gustav Ecke),

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.....and I am hoping I can get away with making only a new top outer frame.

The last person to try to save it was a butcher, not a surgeon!

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Originally Posted by Austin_Turner

The last person to try to save it was a butcher, not a surgeon!

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.... possibly a panelbeater?

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Originally Posted by fletty

.... possibly a panelbeater?

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Excuse me,I resent that comment,not all us panel beaters were bog masters.

(Tho some are masters at it [emoji3064])

Cheers Matt

Its really sad when you seen an item like that neglected and abused. However, when you "right the wrong" and bring it back to its former glory, there is a great deal of satisfaction.

I felt the same about the clock that was left to rot in sheds and garages.

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Please show the restoration in steps

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Originally Posted by Lappa

Its really sad when you seen an item like that neglected and abused. However, when you "right the wrong" and bring it back to its former glory, there is a great deal of satisfaction.

I felt the same about the clock that was left to rot in sheds and garages.

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Please show the restoration in steps

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Thanks Lap’, that is a stunning resurrection! Can you tell us the story?

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Originally Posted by fletty

.... possibly a panelbeater?

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Wash your mouth out

Sent from my SM-T580 using Tapatalk

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Originally Posted by fletty

Thanks Lap’, that is a stunning resurrection! Can you tell us the story?

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Friesan Clock restoration

Nothing better than enjoying shed time....:2tsup:

I'm looking forward to seeing your patient craftsmanship being this old piece back to life Alan...

Cheers, Peter

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Originally Posted by Acco

Friesan Clock restoration

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Wow Peter, how on Earth did I miss this? Wonderful workmanship and perseverance. A lovely, lovely restoration!
fletty

Fletty ,that should be a stunner when finished! Hope you'll post a step-by-step. Good luck, Pete

Thank you for the flattering requests for a WIP. I lived and worked in China for a couple of years and so developed a bit of knowledge and a lot of respect for Chinese furniture design. I also managed to buy, and bring home, quite a bit of it before the Chinese themselves started again to respect their own furniture heritage and the prices went up exponentially.
There is a lot of very good Chinese furniture in Australia. Some of it imported and a lot of it made here by Chinese craftsmen who came here in the 19th Century searching for gold. Having my tiny bit of knowledge is potentially a dangerous thing and I may have hit one of these dangerous moments? As I said at the beginning, this was a street-find and I may have inferred that this gave me more confidence to restore it but I have been jolted in to reality because I have discovered that this is no ordinary piece. I AM going to restore it but I MIGHT now take more caution!
I have a restoration method in mind and to confirm the method, I have done a few checks. A ‘metho test’ has confirmed that the original finish is shellac and bee’s wax, the top has been coated with some bullet-proof clear, gloss epoxy but the revelation (and concern?) is that the intricate inlay is not timber but, at the very least, bone. I don’t even want to investigate if it might be ivory!

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The low light photo also shows that the inlay is in heavy relief....

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..... and so sanding the epoxy off is out of the question. A method I have used successfully before is to ‘mute’ the glossy epoxy look and feel by cutting it back with our Benevolent Dictator’s cutting polish and a trial has given me an encouraging result. Unfortunately, the epoxy and ‘bog’ have trapped the top pieces of the table together so I can’t just locate the pins and remove them to free the top so I will have to cut the top out but, given that my proposed method requires a new top frame, that shouldn’t cause a problem..........:C

Fletty, looks like you might have to accept minimal work on the centre piece - just a general clean up - but, IMHO, that's good. After all, if it was an Old Master painting you wouldn't strip it back to the canvas :o. Leaving the centre piece relatively untouched and just refurbishing the surround might add to the interest of the finished piece, rather like an old painting put into a new and sympathetic frame. I'll be following with interest. Cheers, Pete

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Originally Posted by woodhutt

Fletty, looks like you might have to accept minimal work on the centre piece - just a general clean up - but, IMHO, that's good. After all, if it was an Old Master painting you wouldn't strip it back to the canvas :o. Leaving the centre piece relatively untouched and just refurbishing the surround might add to the interest of the finished piece, rather like an old painting put into a new and sympathetic frame. I'll be following with interest. Cheers, Pete

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Thanks Pete, yes I think you’re right about the inlayed top. The UBeaut cutting polish has done a good job of cutting back the gloss and making it look less like it has been sealed inside a clear plastic bag so I’ll take that. I am bit intrigued however about what appears to be a few much earlier repairs.....

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...... which look like they may have been done by the original hand? If I have time, and Covid-19 seems to have given me that, I might see how easy it is to scalpel out the repairs and replace with a timber filler. I was shown in China how to grind up bone, mix it with shellac and trowel it into a carved surface and I think this may be the same?
Now that our new isolations have been confirmed and we have been advised that Bundaberg Rum are now making hand sanitiser, I intend to have some quality time on the table ...... with VERY clean hands!

This Bundaberg hand sanitizer. Is it to be taken internally or externally"?
Pete

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Originally Posted by woodhutt

This Bundaberg hand sanitizer. Is it to be taken internally or externally"?
Pete

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Im not good at reading instructions so I’ve decided to spread it on my hands and then lick it off?

It’s pimply sissing down here and I can’t hear myself think in my corrugated iron shed so its time to go up to the house for a coffee. I had planned on trying to keep the bulk of the timber from the table top frame and had a couple of strategies....

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.... but having now got the table top off I have to settle for the fact that it ain’t gunna happen!
I had to lever the table top away from the frame because that is often the only way to find the pins that hold it all together. Having found them, my usual method is to drill into the pin and use a screw and claw hammer to get it out.

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Having extracted 4 pins ......

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...... I ‘tapped’ the top off ......

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......only to find that some reprehensible human being had driven in a couple of nails which caused a bit of damage and certainly put paid to any idea of reusing the original top frame. I might be able to put new top and bottom faces on the frame but...

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Oh dear! Is the edge banding at least recoverable? It doesn't look too bad from the photos. Pete

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Originally Posted by woodhutt

Oh dear! Is the edge banding at least recoverable? It doesn't look too bad from the photos. Pete

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I fear the entire top frame is beyond resurrection. I’d say the table has been out in the weather for a long time and water has seeped into all of the fine joinery and quietly rotted it away. Putting panel beaters bog into the holes just sealed the water in.

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The frame immediately under the table top is in pretty good nick though. I’ll make a new top frame using traditional through tenons, place it onto the frame, mark the location of the 4 corner stub tenons and cut the matching mortises before installing the inlayed panel. The brutal process of removing the tabletop has already resulted in me being down on the floor on hands and knees searching for tiny pieces of displaced ‘bone’!

Hi fletty, If this is indeed bone and you're going to have a go at carving the inlay yourself my wife has a recipe for preparing the bone that she used to use at the lapidary club. My only recollection of her working with the bone is that it was pretty stinky and was thus strictly for the club rooms. :D

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Originally Posted by aldav

Hi fletty, If this is indeed bone and you're going to have a go at carving the inlay yourself my wife has a recipe for preparing the bone that she used to use at the lapidary club. My only recollection of her working with the bone is that it was pretty stinky and was thus strictly for the club rooms. :D

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Thanks Aldav. Your comment about the odour revived my fading memory of what I was shown in China! Think knackery meets tannery meets hide glue! My mentor got his supplies from the back door of an eating place that I wouldn’t even walk in to. He pulverised the bone with a hammer and then ground it to a fine powder with a mortar and pestle in to which he then added hide glue if it was a new job yet to be finished, or shellac if it was a repair. After searching the floor, there is now only 1 ‘petal’ in the top left corner....

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.... that I feel the need to repair? I’m tempted to decant a tin of Classic Cream spray paint into a cup and use a fine brush to wick it into the rebate .......... provided you guys promise not to tell anyone :;

How’s the table going Fletty?
I noticed a can of Restorafinish - used that on some other of my wife’s grandparents furniture (following your recommendation) and it can up a treat.

Hi Lap’, yes, sorry but I got a bit sidetracked with this.....

https://www.woodworkforums.com/f87/f...00#post2182355

.... but you must be telepathetic because only this afternoon I started looking for the most appropriate timber to make the new top frame. I have some rather plain Australian red cedar that has the right base colour but I’m worried about its softness?
I use the Restor-a-finish on just about every job I do now but discovering that they also made a NEUTRAL as well as dedicated timber colours has made it even more useful! It is perfect for Chinese black lacquer ware. I’ll be back on to the table in the next few days because it is to be a surprise birthday gift due on May5 ...... which used to seem so far away :no:

Back on to the Chinese table restoration. I went down the backyard to the SECRET TIMBER STASH and found a glorious piece of dark Australian red cedar

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It is only just big enough to do the job and so I can’t afford to make any mistakes :no: but, given the number of mistakes I have made recently, this will require a minor miracle!

We believe in you Fletty. Get it done

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Originally Posted by NCArcher

We believe in you Fletty. Get it done

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You’re possibly referring to the fletty who wouldn’t have done a marathon sanding effort yesterday without the vacuum hose being connected to the sander? The fletty currently STILL cleaning up the shed did?

Started the Chinese through tenon joinery....

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Getting there......

Had a light day in the shed today. It seems I was making quarantine look like too much fun? I trimmed the top frame joints until it all came together neatly around the inlayed panel...

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... and then glued the frame with hide glue making sure that the inlayed panel could still float

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The four lugs that come up from the legs and are pierced by the pins that held table top on,

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..... were damaged during disassembly due to the hidden nails IN ADDITION to the pins and need to be repaired even if I only use them to locate the table top, so I extracted the pieces from the old table top frame and glued them back to the stumps that were left.....

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The clamped table top closed up nicely around the inlayed panel and I’m looking forward to cleaning it up tomorrow...

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When one can play in the shed at one's passion, who gives a toss about quarantine isolation issues :roll:

I've had so much shed time that I have stop every couple of days to clean up the mess...:~

Keep enjoying the shed time Alan while following the government guidelines to isolate...:2tsup:

Cheers, Peter

PS - The table is coming on nicely, well done on the one shot Australian Red Cedar...

The lugs to hold the table top on are actually a continuation of the legs but unfortunately they were ‘shredded’ when the old table top was removed due mostly to my ‘mystery nailer’. I have decided to make a subframe which will mount to the legs using what is left of the lugs and then the table top can mount to the subframe. This is the table top on top of the subframe and before the subframe was glued together...

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The subframe needed cut outs for the lugs to pass through and these were cut with saws before the subframe components were joined...

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One of the shelf supports was BADLY rotted and, due to the complexity of the ‘cracked ice’ bottom shelf which is joined to it, I didn’t want to risk removing the whole support so I put the table on the router table (!) and passed it over a parallel cutter until I had removed enough of the rotted timber to allow me to make and fit a new outer face. This photos show the process...

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I then chiseled out the mitred ends of the old shelf support and came across some more of ‘mystery nailers’ handiwork...

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... and then cut, shaped and glued a new outer face to the shelf support...

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The shed would soon be filled with end-of-day light and so I thought I would roughly assemble the whole catastrophe and make up a colour sample while there was still daylight. The colour samples in the first photo (L to R) are Feast Watson brown Japan, oak and walnut and in the second photo I’ve put on a single coat of WOP on the sample pallet.

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The colour decision will be made tomorrow but it looks like a combination of brown Japan and oak?

Back up to the house for a cuppa. Yup, Feast Watson oak stain on Australian red cedar is very good colour and grain match

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Seeing Fletty cleaning up that tenon with a chisel reminded me of the blunt chisel technique and no that is not a joke. Sorry for going OT for a bit but it is worth taking the time to watch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re_bp5Lp0To

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Originally Posted by Chris Parks

Seeing Fletty cleaning up that tenon with a chisel reminded me of the blunt chisel technique and no that is not a joke. Sorry for going OT for a bit but it is worth taking the time to watch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re_bp5Lp0To

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Obviously my chisel mustn’t be blunt enough!

I got a first coat of WOP on the new parts, restor-a-finish and ‘oak’ stain on the original bits and it’s starting to look the goods.

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Im a bit puzzled about the colour in the photographs? The top frame and subframe are cut from the same plank, stained and WOP’d identically but photograph differently? They appear the same colour in real life .... whatever that is?

Certainly has come up a treat. Work of a craftsman. Does the middle section rebate into the side panels or does it rebate between the upper frame and the under support (for want of a better name)?
One step I dread during restoration is that first application of spirit dye and I always tend to go light in the fear it will be too dark. And even I say light it’s really light:D Need more confidence.

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Originally Posted by Chris Parks

Seeing Fletty cleaning up that tenon with a chisel reminded me of the blunt chisel technique and no that is not a joke. Sorry for going OT for a bit but it is worth taking the time to watch.

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I’ve just tried it, BRILLIANT! I shouldn’t be surprised of course but it works just like a planemakers float? Now, which of my ridiculous number of otherwise unused but not yet blunt enough chisels shall I dedicate to this?

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Originally Posted by Lappa

Certainly has come up a treat. Work of a craftsman. Does the middle section rebate into the side panels or does it rebate between the upper frame and the under support (for want of a better name)?
One step I dread during restoration is that first application of spirit dye and I always tend to go light in the fear it will be too dark. And even I say light it’s really light:D Need more confidence.

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Thank you Lap’ :B
I usually try to make any new work, that I add to a piece, removable so that someone cleverer/later/more obsessive can go back to the original and start again. On this piece , this is the stage that can be a new start point...
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This subframe will be discreetly screwed to the original

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and then this top frame and inlay will likewise be discreetly screwed to the subframe......

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The inlay itself floats inside the frame, is supported from underneath but can still be removed from the frame.....

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I lightly sanded both frames to apply another coat of WOP but, as soon as I took them out of the shed, the red hue disappeared and I’ve discovered that translucent poly roofing casts a rose colour to anything in direct line with the Sun? This is the unadulterated colour in direct light and after the second coat of WOP.

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That’s certainly an excellent colour match.