Thread: Chinese tea table resurrection

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

Originally Posted by Austin_Turner

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

.... possibly a panelbeater?

Originally Posted by fletty

.... possibly a panelbeater?

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

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.

03B01D8C-0CF8-449A-B789-30F030FFF0F1.jpeg

Please show the restoration in steps

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

Originally Posted by fletty

.... possibly a panelbeater?

Wash your mouth out

Sent from my SM-T580 using Tapatalk

Originally Posted by fletty

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

Friesan Clock restoration

Nothing better than enjoying shed time....

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

Cheers, Peter

Originally Posted by Acco

Friesan Clock restoration

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..........

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 . 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

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 . 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

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