My Name Is William I Am Self Trained In The Restoration Conservation and Stabilization Of Antique Furniture For Over 40 Years. I Use Traditional Methods And Always Try to Maintain The Original Patination when possible , Years Of Light And Wear Just Cannot Be Faked. I Will Try And Show Some Of My Ways Of Antique Restoration I Have Learnt Over The Years. The more mistakes you make, the more you learn and the better you get at not making those mistakes again.
Really enjoy seeing these older furniture pieces being lovingly restored. These antique piano stools can be repurposed in many ways around the home if you don't have an old piano to go with them. Those feet are known as "Ball and Claw" and were used on various types of legged wood furniture back during the time period when this stool was made. The claw feet also came in a couple different sizes with this stool's feet being the smaller size.
Why would someone put a pine top on a solid Queensland maple cabinet like this one? I just don’t get that??? Is there a reason for this that you know of pls?
The interpretations of common styles of furniture in the colonies never fails to interest me. Much like the Caribbean stylings added to pieces made during the 18th century here in the Americas, I'm sure there are many examples of Indo-Anglo furniture. Thank you for this, very informative and interesting.
The Tongue and Groove solid pine back could be removed but we have managed to neutralize any inside odors with just sanding from the inside and applying a coat of shellac.
Couple of points. Why didn't you wash the piece with detergent as a first step to remove the excrement and smell? It will clean it more effectively than sanding and you wouldn't run the risk of inhaling cockroach and mouse droppings. Second methylene chloride paint stripper is banned in Europe as it's a carcinogen. I noticed that you had no PPE - no gloves, respirator and you were wearing flip flops. You'd be prosecuted over here!
I have found in the past getting the timber wet even with detergent makes the smell worse and i have been using this paint stripper in a well ventilated area for 40 years with no issues.
neighbor down the street had an old chest on side of the road - husband refused to let me get it. After watching your videos I wanted to try my hand at restoring.
Great stuff Our man Tom Johnson usually advocates only using hide glue on antiques, though I (perhaps like you) like to use carpenters’ glue where I don’t want a glue-up to be reversible (ie with a crack or split). What’re your thoughts?
@sj_harris thx for the comment. In this occasion we did not want this top to split again, hide glue does not have the strength required to give me confidence the joint wont open up again in a hot climate. Hide Glue is a great for many occasions when the repair may need to be reversed and hide glue dries much more invisible than pva glue which is great for Antiques. This table is not a flat even piece of wood the center is carved out on a primitive wood lathe and the edge relief heavily carved out. This Shape will always warp and move especially when you come home to a hot house switch the air conditioner on and drastically change the room temp fast. thx for watching
This piece is so impressive. Someone managed to do some beautiful hand carving and make them all uniform. Such attention to detail. Of course your attention to detail while bringing the table back to its original state is always impressive.
Beautiful job on the finish and the repairs. The red glow is nice, but I kinka prefer the more purple hue. It gave it a more richer feel. A couple of questions: Was the crack in the top still visible and does this have French polish on it and do you ever use French polish? How did a table like that ever end up in Australia?
The Crack is visible but not noticeable unless you look for it as the owner would not let us sand the top to smooth it out and there is a warp so it does not join perfectly straight. The Table is bright because its outside it looks a lot darker when placed inside a home. Australia has a lot of English Antiques and was a wealthy country 100 years ago with new migrants who many brough the furniture with them
