Restoration Advice

[Yorkie]

Well, today I came home from B+Q with..

Gloves, Eye glasses, A mask, some groundsheets, fine wire wool, medium sander, brushes, wood dye of the nearest colour, furniture stripper, tape.

What else do you recommend and how do I start?

Cheers,

Steve P.

My advice would be to avoid using sandpaper - the veneer is very thin (modern veneers are just 0.6mm). When you apply the stripper, after a few minutes the varnish (probably cellulose lacquer actually) will start to bubble up. The best tool to use to remove that is a cabinet scraper - certainly not a paint scraper, but you could use a plane iron with a burr on it, or even a wide chisel, but go gently, and never work across ther grain - always with it. Steel wool allone might suffice.

B&Q won't sell any sandpaper fine enough to use on venner - they probably call it 'coarse, medium and fine', but probably dont say the grit number on the back. Personally, about the coarsest paper I'd use would be 600 grit, and then only sparingly. For that, you probably need wet and dry paper, but don't use it wet.

As to wire wool, make sure it's 0000 or 00000 grade - no coarser than that. It you use any grit - for example, 120, you then need to go progressivly through the finer grits to remove the score marks of the lower grits - you can't just go from say 120 to 600 in one jump - you'd have to use 180, 240, 320, 400 and so on. That's ok on solid wood - for example a bowl being turned on a lathe, or a solid wood table top, but would wreck veneer and be through to the base wood in no time at all. Be especially careful on the bends as it's very easy to cut through the veneer.

In short, the more gentle you are, the better will be the finish on which to apply shellac or whatever. Think 'butterfly's wing'! You can't apply a good finish on a poor base, any more than you can put lipstick on a pig to make it look more attractive:D

As hobbyists, we may not have the skills that professionals have, but we do have something that they don't have - time on our hands. The more time we take, the more care we take, the more professional the end result.

Colin has never had any training and never taken a penny from anyone, but the end results he attains are in every sense of the word 'professional'. The one thing an apprenticeship in any trade gives us is 'pride in the job' - doing things up to a standard - not down to a price. It doesn't take much longer to do the job properly than to bodge it. Indeed, it sometimes takes less time, for a more pleasing end result.

Best of luck with it Steve - do keep us informed of progress!

[Retired]

Hi,

B&Q profits will be up Steve. I like to use companies such as Restoration Materials in Bury for all my finishing materials but when I visit I always come away with an empty pocket.

http://www.restoration-materials.co.uk/

The decision is now up to you Steve as to the way you wish to go with this cabinet.

Both Joe and I differ a great deal in our respective approaches to finishing; Joe likes the lived in approach whereas I like the factory fresh approach. There is also everything in-between these extremes to confuse the issue.

I'm not a lover of wire wool and would not use it on bare wood as it can leave strands in the grain especially on timbers like oak which is open pored. Wire wool also gets snagged on exposed end grain.

I hope to see you a week Sunday at Golborne and have a good natter. Whatever you decide to do Steve go for it and enjoy yourself.

Kind regards, Col.

[Joe]

I've seen your things, Col, and "Factory fresh" they are not: they are far better! As David says we can take far more time than a factory can.

- Joe

[Retired]

Hi,

What a wonderful compliment Joe; thank you.

I've always thought a cabinet restoration to be 80% patience and 20% skill and still do. I never begrudge the time I spend working on a restoration in fact the longer it takes the better for me because once it is completed it becomes just another set to dust down and switch on occasionally.

David is correct in saying that I've not had any training whatsoever in woodworking or cabinet-working. I did woodworking at secondary school but hated the subject and thought the teacher would have been better teaching needlework; I failed in the subject.

I'm considering selling a number of my sets to make space in the workshop; I enjoy cabinetwork more than the electrical side so am thinking of concentrating more on veneering and French polishing but as yet am undecided.

I sincerely hope Steve enjoys his first cabinet restoration leading to others. At first it is highly frustrating and many silly mistakes are made but I hope by adding my notes onto the forums many of the mistakes I made can be avoided and my notes also give suppliers names of hard to get materials which was a major problem for me when I started out.

Whatever you decided to do Steve do it very slowly; take one day at a time and build on your small successes; be mindful of what you want the cabinet to look like and work towards this in small steps; to try to tackle the lot at one go will end in failure and disappointment; your first cabinet restoration will seem very slow and this is normal; you will still be slow as you gain experience but once the mistakes have been made and corrected leaving you with your dream I'm sure you will do more.

I accept that we are all different and there are many approaches to restoring a cabinet; my key to success is not skill but more down to patience and determination after all skill will come with practice and the very first restoration will cover most of the mistakes. If there is a difference about me it is only patience.

My Ekco T311 TV cabinet restoration took four months to complete and all during this time I was working in the worst winter ever recorded and having to learn many new techniques as the cabinet was in dire condition resulting in me not only re-veneering the entire cabinet but in replacing over half of the timber including both side panels; I enjoyed every minute whilst doing this and all through the work there was never any guarantee of success.

Materials are cheap and as long as care is exercised not to cut through to bare timber whilst flatting then it is hard to make a lasting mistake. Brush marks; curtains or runs in shellac are no great problem if the shellac is allowed to dry overnight. As long as a good thickness of shellac is built up then any imperfections can be flatted out. I once applied shellac that resulted in a nightmare finish but after six hours of careful flatting the finish turned out perfect; I'll try to find the pictures then everyone can see that not everything goes right all the time for me.

My chum David (Yorkie) has just completed his first veneering job; this being on a lovely wooden box he made from scratch. David exercised patience throughout; he made the box with perfect comb jointed corners; veneered it in oak and finished it and it didn't take him long as David kindly kept me up to date with work in progress and pictures via email. Nice one David;another success story.

My approach works for me but as I say we are all different.

What a great tread this is and I hope it encourages others to have a go at cabinetwork.

Kind regards, Col.

[Yorkie]

My chum David (Yorkie) has just completed his first veneering job; this being on a lovely wooden box he made from scratch. David exercised patience throughout; he made the box with perfect comb jointed corners; veneered it in oak and finished it and it didn't take him long as David kindly kept me up to date with work in progress and pictures via email. Nice one David;another success story.

Thanks Colin!

Although it's not a radio cabinet so not directly relevant to this thread, the techniques used to venner and finish the box are just the same I guess, particularly if it was desired to re-veneer a flat surfaced radio cabinet. My son asked if I'd make him a box to store a boxed set of CDs to match his oak furniture. The box is about 12" long 9" high and 9" deep, and he asked if I'd line it with brown felt.

I made it from 12mm thick ply, and veneered it with rift oak veneer bought cheaply off e-bay, which I fixed with hide glue. Oak isn't the easiest of veneers to use as it's so open grained. However, after I'd stained it dark oak, and given it several coats of shellac sanding sealer and sanded it with 1200 grit wet and dry, then applied pastwax it buffed up to an accpetable finish.

Rather than try to apply felt directly to the inside of the box I stuck it to panels of stiff card then fixed the panels inside the cabinet. I made the box as one piece, then sawed off the top and cleaned up the cut edges before I applied the veneer, then applied lipping to the inside of the lid so that it would fit on snugly, then I applied the veneer.

Incidentally, if wire wool comes into contact with oak and gets wet, it will react with the tanin and stain the veneer black. If woodturners want to 'ebonise' oak, the put some wire wool in a jar of vinegar and leave it overnight. When applied to oak, it will make it look like ebony when it reacts with the tanin. You can buy ebonising liquid, but why bother when for a fraction of the price you can achieve the same results.

The trick is of course, not to accidentally turn oak black when you don't want to, so keep wire wool well away from it!

I've attached a few pics, which I hope may be of interest.

[Retired]

Hi,

You made a lovely job of the box David and veneered it perfectly at your very first attempt. I'm pleased you posted the details and pictures in order to encourage others to have a go. The technique used to veneer the box is exactly the same used to veneer a radio/TV cabinet and once the basics are learned it becomes much easier. I'm looking forward to you re-veneering your first set. Well done with the box; a success story.

I'm pleased to include pictures for you Steve showing what to expect if you decide to go the French polishing (shellac) route. Once the cabinet is prepared ready to accept shellac then four coats can be brushed on per day allowing the shellac to dry out overnight in a warm place.

Two clean jam jars with lids are very useful. One is half filled with meths for washing the brush out the other is half filled with shellac. The lids must be replaced immediately after each use. I've said I make silly mistakes and a classic was to remove the newly applied finish whilst using a rubber; in my eagerness to achieve a mirror finish I lost the plot and ended up charging the rubber with meths as I picked up the wrong jar to charge the rubber with. I'll not make this mistake a second time.

Once sufficient thickness has been built up then it is carefully flatted ensuring not to cut through to bare wood. If in doubt apply more brush coats; I apply a minimum of eight brush coats and even more if I feel the thickness might flat through. This is not a job to rush and a couple of extra days won't be wasted.

The first picture shows the brush applied coats looking very rough and I've had brush applied coats of shellac look a lot worse than this. The second picture shows flatting in progress and clearly highlights the brush marks and the final picture shows the surface after flatting and looking much better. Once this stage is reached the hard work is almost over. I now use Talcum powder as a lubricant whilst flatting but this can be a problem if the grain is not filled as the talc needs completely removing after flatting or it will show up white in the finish. A dry artists brush is ideal for removing talc from corners etc.

Kind regards, Col.

           

[Mark R]

Sir Sydney I have a spare cabinet scraper you can have. Also some time to assist you if required next week after pay day on Tues.

cheers Mark