Old School Furniture Restoration..

Hi Fulla's, Hope you all had a great Christmas and New Years.
My next project is to restore two old school English Oak Dressers for a client. I know they're both made in NZ because they have heart Rimu drawer sides and Rimu ply for the backs. Beautifully made, solid and well built, they're a testament to old school skill and workmanship.
So I really really don't want to c**k them up. After a bit of "Google" research I decided they were finished in shellack or something similar. I have some acetone so I tested a bit on a drawer front and sure enough it started to rub off, but I noticed that unless I clean the rag and use more acetone it just seems to coat the finish back on, Hmmm, not really what i had in mind, so I thought I'd need to use an old school card scraper which somehow seems appropriate.
Do you think I'll still need to use the acetone ? surely it'll be easier to cut out the middle man and just scrape?
Also do you think I'll need to re-stain the furniture first before re-oiling?
Cool guys, any thoughts are appreciated.


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Oh, and has anyone used a Stanley #80 scraper plane?

I've found a good way to clean the old shellac off is using methylated spirits, 0000 steel wool and lots of paper towel or old newspapers. Doing a small area at a time, use the meths and steel wool to soften the shellac, then quickly wipe off the slurry. You may need to repeat several times.

Could be either shellac or nitrocellulose my bet would be shellac.

Quickest an by far the easiest method:

Buy some cheap paint stripper, slop it on when the finish is gooey scrape it all off with a paint scraper before washing the whole thing down with metho, steel wool and lots of rag. You should be able to completely strip the entire thing in well under an hour with little or no effort.

Then all that should be required is a bit of light sanding and it will be ready for finishing.

Cheers - Neil :U

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Originally Posted by Kiwi75

Also do you think I'll need to re-stain the furniture first before re-oiling?

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It does look like the piece was stained so, if you want the same darker colour, you will probably need to stain again before you finish. Make sure that you use a transparent stain like a spirit stain as the oil based stains tend to be pigmented and somewhat opaque, hiding the beauty of the timber's figure. I haven't used the water based stains but have read that they are good too.

Why are you planning to oil it? A piece of furniture like this would usually have a harder polish I would have thought. Shellac is pretty easy to apply, either with a rubber (pad of cotton wool in lint-free cotton fabric) or a very fine varnish brush. Just rub the surface down with 600 to 1000 grit wet and dry paper between every half dozen coats or so to keep it smooth. I would advise staying away from the polyurethanes and their ilk as they do not suit old furniture (in my and many others' opinion anyway).

By-the-way, at that age it may not be English Oak. I have been told that there was a lot of North American oak and even Asian/Japanese Oak used in the 1920's to 1950's.

Good luck with it.

Hey thanks everyone for your helpful replies. I've gone with the Card scraper, acetone and steel wool approach which is proving very effective"Not to mention that I'm gaining new card sharpening skills"
I was just wondering what you guys would recommend regarding the sanding. ATM I'm considering just hand sanding only, but could I use a standard orbital sander"Not a random orbital" to speed things up? I just don't like the swirling pattern they leave which ultimately means you have to hand sand them out which seems silly.
Cheers all.
Carlos

If it was me I would just hand sand it.

I've decided to put the original handles back on, partly because they've left a sun mark on the drawer fronts but mostly because they're interesting and it will keep the drawers completely original.
But does anyone know what these are made from?
At a very uneducated guess I would say the drawers were manufactured in the 60's, is it an early synthetic material? or perhaps laminated bone? I would love to bring them back to former glory but I have no idea as to how and I would hate to damage them with ignorance.
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Originally Posted by Xanthorrhoeas

Why are you planning to oil it? A piece of furniture like this would usually have a harder polish I would have thought.

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Could you explain this please Xanthorrhoeas?

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Originally Posted by Kiwi75

Could you explain this please Xanthorrhoeas?

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What David was suggesting is that an oiled surface will never really provide sufficient protection from any sort of use, nor shine. Oiled finishes attract dust, and unless highly polised (buffed - i.e burnishing oil or orange oil), generally is not recommended as the surface will break down over time. Linseed oil is ok for outside furniture, but that is about it.

Traditional methods for furniture finishing mostly was based around the use of shellac and a bees wax polish. The only downside of shellac finishes is that they can scratch (but this can readily be repaired), fading due to high sunlight (UV) exposure, and water, acetone materials (i.e perfumes/nail polish remover etc), and heat (don't ever put a hot cuppa on shellac finished surfaces). However, use of hard shellac can mostly get around these issues. Shellac brings out the natural colour and grain of timber and provides an authentic finish for old furniture.

What Neil and David recommend in regards to restoring this piece, I would support.

Re use of the handles, polishing the chromed part with a good metal polish should help. While use of 0000 grade steel wool, and cleaning agents, jeweler's rouge or even car cut & polish should work ok. My guess given the age of this piece is that the lighter part of the handle is made from bakelight (essentially plastic) rather than bone.