Thread: Restoration finally completed

Looks pretty good in the pics Iain . I can see why you restored it as it has a lot of character

Peter

Oh yeah: they don't make 'em like that'ny more. Well worth restoring, and an excellent result.

I wonder why it was veneered if it was solid oak. Crappy oak underneath?

Was there much work to do on the base?

What would be the correct glue to use for the veneer? I assume in the old days they would have used hide glue. Is this resistant to spirits, shellac etc?

Iain, good to see the shed is coming along nicely in the organised stakes!

Looks a lot like mine at the moment :eek:

Cheers Ian

The owners of the table came to Oz from Holland in the early 50's and this was Grandma's coffee table.
Brother, being trendy in the early 60's decided to glue vinyl on the top.
Late 90's it looked like crap and the vinyl was torn off taking a lot of the original veneer with it.
The top was a pinkish timber (4 pieces) with oak veneer over top.
The pointy bits on the legs had been chewed by the family dog and needed to be rebuilt.
The original varnish was cracked and crappy and I stripped the whole thing down as well as building up the dog chewed points.
The stain was even, although in the picture it looks like it is light in places, I attribute this to the flash on the camera for it was an even stain.
The whole table was nailed together and lots of little blocks under the top and due to the age I could not dismantle the table so I had to work with what I had.
It was a mongrel job and I was really starting to regret taking it on but the owners liked the finish, well, it was what they asked for.
I used Wattyl Profressional stain (walnut) applied with a brush and rubbed off a few minutes later, when dry I did it again, four times for the dark finish.
The veneer was very porous and I filled it with filler and sanded back to 400 grit then wet it and sanded again before staining.
4 coats of matte poly and all was well, pity about the hard shellac.
And my shed is organised, you should see it when its a mess

Come up a real treat, good job.

Very nice.


I hate rerinishing old things. I'd rather make a new table and distress it to make it look old. Again nice work

That came up nicely Iain. I'm with you on re-finishing old things, would much rather start from scratch.

Originally Posted by Iain

Some amazing discoveries along the way, used PVA to attach veneer, worked a treat until we applied the spirit based stain, damned veneer lifted off, put back down and applied Ubeaut hard shellac, same problem.

That's interesting. Just before reading your post, I did some veneering using PVA and ironed it. Used Scandinavian oil thinned with gum turps. Seems to have held together OK - I wasn't sure if it would.

Gidday Iain

Now that shes finished...................down the track you can look back & see what a great journey!!!!

...............You've successfully reserected an ageless piece Iain........Well Done!!!!

What do ya reckon of restoring??????


Regards Lou:eek:

Originally Posted by NewLou

What do ya reckon of restoring??????


Regards Lou:eek:

I've done quite a bit but that one was a real challenge as I couldn't get off the edge trim and had to cut the veneer to fit inside, lovely job and many sessions of frayed temper.
The nails that held the thing together were all rusted in and nothing would budge, under the table top were little 1 1/2" x 1 1/2" blocks of wood to support the edge beading, each one held in place with two nails.
Overall I thoght the legs were OK but the rest was not well made and I would think carefully about taking on something like that one again.
I like old well made furniture but I won in the end and I think the owners got out cheap.