Chinese lacquered cabinet

I know that progress on my current 7 restoration and new-build projects is glacially slow BUT no-one is chasing me AND this piece came up on Facebook yesterday.

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We picked it up today from a lovely lady in Sydney and it is now in the shed. We have a lot of Chinese brown and rosewood furniture so this is my first lacquered, inlaid and painted piece. It is beautiful and could be a bit of a challenge to clean up? The top, and less decorated sides, appear to have been painted, stained, ebonised or soot covered in the past but the front appears to be shellac covered only. I’ll test it later with a bit of metho and then work out how to clean and polish it. We are still going through our traditional domestic farce of me working on it for resale and SWMBO working where it will fit in the house?
I sent a picture to a friend in China and she believes it to be “1920s and typical of the furniture made for the European Concessions in Shanghai”.

fletty

That is a nice piece. I like the honesty :)
Must admit I have too many pieces on the go but decided some will have to have temporary repairs so they can be progressed and then decide if their big repairs are warranted later.
Looking forwards to seeing your pictures as they progress. :)

It is finally time to get on to the black lacquered Chinese cabinet. I had at least done enough to confirm the shellac finish and so had intended to use my go-to Howard’s Restor-a-finish to clean and revive the finish BUT, I had thought that all Restor-a-finish was stained to match a timber type. Well, at Wood Dust a few weeks ago, the nice people at Howard’s confirmed that they had a NEUTRAL version (=no added colour) and so I happily returned with a tin and a smile on my face! As per the directions, I started in “an inconspicuous place” but soon found I’d moved on to VERY CONSPICUOUS areas...

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The change was dramatic as about 100 years of soot and candle wax was removed! It became very difficult to photograph the BEFORE and AFTERS and I should have used my soft lights and real camera .... but I was having far too much fun.

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A few areas will need to be shellacked again and I WILL give it a damned good shellacking too but, rather unusually, the most critical shellac finish over the painted detail, is in very good condition! Maybe it was much thicker in the first place?
There are no mechanical repairs required :yippy: and so shellacking in the necessary areas will be the next step followed by wax and polish. As I finished up tonight, the front face was looking particularly good.....

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On the assumption that the scrolls around the doors are mother-of-pearl inlays, was the Howard product used to clean the mother-of-pearl too? Will they also be shellacked?

I have a writing box with mother-of-pearl inlay that needs cleaning and always thought that mother-of-pearl should not be cleaned with anything else but soapy water.

Yvan

Quote:

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Originally Posted by yvan

On the assumption that the scrolls around the doors are mother-of-pearl inlays, was the Howard product used to clean the mother-of-pearl too? Will they also be shellacked?

I have a writing box with mother-of-pearl inlay that needs cleaning and always thought that mother-of-pearl should not be cleaned with anything else but soapy water.

Yvan

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Good question! On this piece, the detail painting and inlay are well covered with shellac and so the Restor-a-finish is only cleaning the shellac on top of the inlay. I applied the finish with a cloth, not steel wool, to make sure it didn’t come in contact with the inlay and so the dramatic improvement has only come from cleaning and clearing the outer surface of the shellac. However, for future reference, I have some mother of pearl and will pop a bit in the Restor-a-finish and report back?

Thanks Fletty, this would be great!
I didn't know that shellac could be used on top of mother-of-pearl.

Yvan

Quote:

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Originally Posted by yvan

Thanks Fletty, this would be great!
I didn't know that shellac could be used on top of mother-of-pearl.

Yvan

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Shellac is a relatively ‘safe’ and inert material and, until recently, it was the glossy coating on many of the medicinal tablets we took! I also believe that it was the glossy coating on Smarties?

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24 hours and all’s well! The mother of pearl on the right is submerged in Restor-a-finish.

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48 hours and no sign of damage to the mother of pearl. Tomorrow, I’ll give both the control and submerged samples a bit of a scuff with steel wool to see if there has been any softening but, otherwise, so far, so good?

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OK, 7 days submerged in neutral Restor-a-Finish and today also given a firm scrub with a coarse cloth. I reckon mother-of-pearl is, for the duration we need to clean an inlay, immune to the effects of Retor-a-Finish.

Mother of pearl is often fixed in place with urushi in, err, urushi finished pieces, so I can't image shellac will bother it, or any petro/alco based solvent.