Family History, Rescued. - Thomas Johnson Antique Furniture Restoration

I'm Tom Johnson, Thomas Johnson Antique Furniture Restoration, in Gorham, Maine. This little table has special significance to the owner. It was built by his great-grandfather, Lars Bornson, who emigrated to this country in 1889, and he worked as the manager of a lumber company in Twin Falls, Minnesota. He built two of these tables, similar tables, sometime between the time of his marriage in 1896 and the time of his death in 1945. It's got some damage. You know, glass can be a great surface to protect the top, unless water spills and gets underneath the glass, which is what I think happened here. So we have a lot of water damage and loose veneer. For a small table, it's very heavy. That's quite a construction project under here. The aprons and legs remind me very much of a piano bench. Luckily, everything's screwed together, so I'm going to take it apart. I wouldn't have been surprised to see the pieces marked, but they're not, so let me mark them. All right, now I got eight more screws. These two holes aren't drilled all the way through. There's just two screws here. All right, this is great, easily accessible. Here's all the damaged areas here. This looks like a paper gasket. I'll have to remove that and replace it. We start off by percussing, looking for loose veneer. You can see that this piece is loose. This is the corner that's so badly damaged, but I wanted you to be able to hear the difference. This veneer is very thick, so percussing almost, you know, sometimes doesn't work at all. This is another corner where the pieces are obviously loose, but you can't hear it, so you can see it's loose. Oh, wow, this is really thick. There's a lot of glue there. You can see it here on the bottom of the piece, too. I can't tell what kind of glue it is. I'm going to scrape this a bit. Before I do that, I want to put some heat on it and see if it reacts to heat. That was two minutes of heat. Pretty warm. Very little reaction. This glue isn't as thick as it first appeared to be. It's more powdery. This is just water, warm water. Seems to loosen up the gasket just fine. Turns out it comes off dry, too. I don't really think there was any glue here. It's just stuck. So this is the only piece that is going to come out of here. This one's loose, but it's not coming out. It's tight at the other end. There's lots of other cracks and places that appear to be loose. I'm going to inject a liquid hide glue in all these cracks and crevices everywhere around here and use it, of course, for these two pieces, and I'm going to clamp. I'm going to make blocks and clamp down a large area here. Well, it's all down. It's as flat as it can be. Well, I think I'm just going to go ahead now. I mean, this seems to be working. It's down. Time will tell. So there's at least two other areas where some of these triangular pieces were up, and I'm going to do the same technique, clamp them down. All this glue is going somewhere. This side isn't up, but put some glue in there anyway. This piece you can see is loose, but doesn't make much noise, whereas this piece doesn't appear to be loose, but this piece is moving. It's just these pieces being a quarter inch thick, there's just no way that you can get under it and lift it. I'll just keep trying to press glue into these areas. I'm getting ready to glue these loose parts in the center section. I didn't show you before what I was doing underneath. There's a frame underneath, so you don't have a flat surface, and so I was adding these blocks underneath to give the clamps something to grab onto, and also to put direct pressure on these areas. I'm going to slip a board under here just to hold it in place until I get the clamps on. Someone this very day sent me a link to a little suction cup device that connects to your air compressor that can force glue down in these cracks that guitar makers use. It would have been perfect for this one. I will say this, the glue is going somewhere. It's either being absorbed into my finger or it's going down in these cracks because I keep adding more and more, so it's getting down there. Good, they're down. You can see all the excess glue that squeezed out. I guess I got plenty in there. Excess glue can come off with a damp rag, so as I'm wiping this off, I notice that this piece isn't flat, and I'm looking at it, and it's still moving. Because this is a quarter inch thick, I don't think it's possible for me to ever pry this up. I got movement, but I just can't get under it. I'm wondering if I should try to access that space from underneath. Somewhere right about here. This is a pretty thick board. It could possibly be three quarters of an inch thick. It would help explain why this thing is so heavy. I think I may try to drill in there. I think I want to come through right about here. No, I'm not through yet. I think I have to go a little bit deeper. Still not sure. I still don't feel like I'm pushing this thing. I've got to figure out a better way to measure the thickness of this. I need a way to really measure the thickness of this and check it. I have this handy gauge, but it won't reach over. But I think maybe I can do it with some calipers. Yeah, one inch, just like I thought. So we knew that the pocketry pieces were a quarter inch, so that means the underlayment is three quarters of an inch, just like we suspected. Let me check my drill bit here. Yeah, I'm just shy of three quarters of an inch here, because I was being very conservative. I guess I got to go about a sixteenth deeper. All right, I'm pushing it. I'm moving it. All right, good. You know, I think I'm going to do this one too. It's still up, and I want these to be flat. Now, I'm going to use West System epoxy, but instead of the pumps, I'm going to count drops in the right ratio, because I need just such a small quantity. Oh yeah, good. It's coming out. Oh yeah, it's coming out. Good. Plastic side down. Cleans up with alcohol. Now, plastic side down, and I've also marked this top block exactly where I want to put the clamps, which should be right over these two points. Now, I'm really cranking these down. I'm even going to give it just a little a little oomph. I want those pieces of wood to be down and flat, and I will clean this syringe out with a little bit of alcohol. I don't throw these things away. I'll reuse them. Someone's sneaking around just looking for ways to get into trouble. So, this area where most of the water damage occurred is very uneven. I've got to sand it to get it flatter, to get the finish off of it, and then I can treat it with oxalic acid, and I'm going to need to sand the whole top. There's lots of uneven places, and once I sand this area flat, I've got to sand the rest of it too. Maybe I'll try wiping it off first with some lacquer thinner to see if the finish comes off. I realized as I was patting this that I really can't let solvents or water or anything get down in these cracks, so I'm going to have to fill them. I'm going to use oak fama wood. Boy, that was more sanding than I thought I would have to do, but it only made sense. I had to fill those cracks so the water from the oxalic acid didn't go down in there, and this whole end, it was just not flat anyway. So, next thing I want to do is tape off the rest of these edges. I've never known if there was a correct amount of oxalic acid to use. We just use plenty. Like here, I'm going to use two eighth cup measures and about 16 ounces of water. I've got some hot water. I heat it up on the stove, and it ought to do the job. This stain's already disappearing, even as darker marks are starting to fade a little bit. That's a good sign. This is one of the worst areas, so I'll just dab a little more. So, I'll just let this dry now. I'll come back and check on it, and if it gets too dry in some of these areas where the stains are worse, I'll just dab a little more on. And then, probably this evening, I'll come in. If it's dried, I'll give it a good rinse so it can dry overnight. And, of course, this is our first preview of what this top will look like when it's finished. All right, this has dried well. It looks good. I think the stains are gone. I'm going to rinse it off so that it can dry overnight, and I can work on it tomorrow. Now, let that dry overnight. It feels good. And now, more sanding with 150 and 220. You know, a lot of these pieces are being sanded cross-grain, which is fine, as long as you sand the 100 marks out with 150, and then sand the 150 marks out with 220. And then, it's not getting stained, so it'll be fine. When the wood's been treated with so much water, I like to sand at a 45 first, just a little bit, to knock the grain down, and then straight. I'm hoping you can see here the 100 grit scratches going cross-grain, so I'll sand with 150 until those are gone. It can be difficult to tell, but I think I've replaced the 100 grit scratches with 150 scratches now. All right, now on to 220. I think that looks good now. Yeah, I think the ebony looks good, too. It's the darker woods that you're most worried about. I'm going to apply a coat of the Waterlox Tung Oil Varnish. That's good, actually. I want this to sit flat. Just a damp rag to get the excess glue off. Still takes a little bit of work to come off, but it comes off. You can definitely make a case for refinishing this frame. It's got a lot of water damage, but before I do that, I'm going to try cleaning it with some paint, then, or try scrubbing it. See what I can get out of it. It'd be nice if I didn't have to refinish it, because I want to keep the finish the same on the base. I assume it's the original finish. I'm going to use one alt steel wool. I should say zero steel wool. Well, that seems to bring this right back to life, but let's check the damaged end. Wow, that big water spot seems to have gone away, but of course, we won't really know till it dries, but this is a really good sign. So, I'm going to go over this entire frame with the steel wool and paint thinner, and the base, too. Even these drip marks seem to be coming off. These are a little more stubborn, which is surprising. All right, while that paint thinner dries, we can get back on the top, give it another coat. All right, that's nice and dry. I'm going to buff it lightly with 320, and put another coat on. I'm going to wipe it off with this Mohawk wax wash remover. It's just a blend of solvents that's really good at removing any contaminants that might be on the surface, which I don't expect here. So, the paint thinner has flashed off, and it's just gone back to looking the same as it did before. The water marks came back. So, I'm going to treat this with oxalic acid. So, first, I'm going to fill these cracks. I don't want water to go down, and then I'm going to sand it just lightly with 220, as little as I can get away with. Okay, I've let the putty dry for about 45 minutes, and I'm going to sand, but just with 220, and just try to keep it as light as possible. Some of those lighter water marks go away almost instantly with the sanding. This is the worst water mark right here. It won't go away so easily. Yeah, these are tough. I just don't want to sand this frame so that it looks like new. I had to sand that top, you know, obviously, because it was so badly damaged. I'm hoping to retain some of the character. I want this frame to still match the base. Slowly but surely, the whiteness is going away, and it looks like the color is good underneath of it. I'm going to put a little paint thinner on it. Although, as we saw before, it doesn't tell too much, but the color looks good. Yeah, I like what I'm seeing here, so I'll just keep sanding until all those water spots are gone, and then for the oxalic acid. See, we were focused on the larger damaged areas, but here you can see all these water spots. They weren't even that obvious at first. After I cleaned it, they came out. So I'm sanding just enough until I see those go away, and hopefully they'll stay away. See all these drip marks? Of course, the oxalic is going to help, too. I just realized, looking at this, the sides of this are veneered. I think that might be, well, I don't know, might be maple or some or figured wood of some sort. This is the same oxalic that I mixed up and used on the parquetry top. Well, the good news is that I was going to do a close-up of the corner that had the worst damage, and honestly, I can't tell which one it is, so that's a good sign. We'll see. These things can come back sometimes, and the color looks good, too. I might need to tint the finish a little bit, but we'll see. Wow, so last night, I rinsed off the oxalic, and it looks good. It's lighter than this, but it sort of has the same look. I may need a little stain on it, but I'm setting this here, looking at the color, realizing there's something missing. I completely forgot about the edge of the top. In the meantime, the top's looking great. It's definitely going to need another coat, though, and yes, I'm saving the plastic. I'll use this quite a few more times. I'm trying to sand as little as possible, but, you know, or to put it another way, I want to sand just enough to see these marks diminish some, maybe not even go away altogether. They may not go away altogether. Those marks may still be there. They may come back when I do the next step or something, but at least they're greatly diminished. I can work with that. This is the same jar of oxalic acid. Yeah, the color looks really good with the base. Okay, I'll let this dry, and then I'll rinse it off with clear water. Okay, this has been rinsed, dried. I'm going to go over it with a gray pad to get it ready for a coat of finish. For this part of the top and the frame, I need to mix some stain and some finish to bring this in closer to the base, but first I'm going to sand the top and get it ready for a clear coat. It's easy to see why the top needs another coat. There's so many different types of wood here, all with different levels of porosity. I think you can see this here, so I need to get some of these pieces of oak that have soaked in so much finish a little more built up. Okay, let's see what we can do here. This is an oil-based stain that will mix with the oil-based finish, and this is raw umber. There's a random piece of wood. I'm just going to put a little finish on. Pretty weird looking. Yeah, that looks pretty weird, but I didn't want any red in the stain, and this is just a piece of poplar, so the stain looks crappy anyway, but it's enough. I've got plenty of orange in this piece. I'm going to try a little bit of this and see what it looks like. Okay, it still is different. It's good, but it's still different. It still has too much orange in it. I'm going to put some more of that brown stain in. I'll switch to a foam brush here. Maybe I get a better idea. So it definitely darkened it up, but I wouldn't say it necessarily matches any better. I may add some more clear, lighten it out, get somewhere between these two. So you have to realize I'm not even trying to match this finish. I don't even want to talk about this white stuff that's in the grain. That might be white filler or glaze. I don't even know if it was done on purpose, but I want to get this to a color that goes with it pretty well and won't jump out. So I'm going to add a little more clear and then do the whole side and put it on the floor and see what it looks like. Not bad really. There's even some white in that grain still. I think I'm going to go with that. The top frame will definitely need additional color coats. Okay, now I'll put a clear coat on the top and now I'm going to put a coat of clear satin on the base. I just realized there's some black marks on these legs I need to get rid of. So I'll abrade this area a little bit with this maroon Scotch-Brite pad. I'll dip a gray Scotch-Brite pad in the same oxalic acid I've been using. Boy, it looks a lot better now. All right, I've given this plenty of time to dry. All right, let that dry. Okay, I want to put this together. I'm going to do it away from the windows. Yeah, I think it looks good. This frame matches that really well and this needs more color and I knew it was. This was the lightest part. It cleaned up the lightest. So this top frame needs more color. I have an oil stain here. The color is called Pecans. I got this. It's a really good color for the old schoolhouse oak type of color. Yeah, that looks good. It's my intention to mix this with varnish but let's just try a little bit frame first. Boy, that looks good. That looks just like the rest of it. I'm just going to apply the stain directly on top of this finish. I only have like one coat of that toner varnish on here. I'm going to put the stain right over it. Okay, that looks good. We'll let that dry for a couple hours. Everything looks good. I've let this stain dry. I'm going to give everything a coat of satin now. All right, we'll let this dry overnight. Wow, everything looks good. I'm going to go over everything with some steel wool and polish and assemble it. Now, I don't need to do anything to the top. It's great and it gets covered with glass anyway. And on the sides and legs and everything, I'm going to use some four ought steel wool and this oil beeswax polish. So the four ought steel wool just acts to smooth the surface a bit with the polish as a lubricant. And then of course the polish itself, the beeswax polish, leaves a really nice soft satin sheen. So I've got to reinstall the glass. You know, when I took the glass out, he had used these little strips of felt ribbon or something in here. But I'm going to use a little bit of silicone because I want to have it be watertight. If water spills on the top of this piece of glass, I'm hoping that maybe it won't go through. Luckily, this came already marked. Luckily, I marked this base. I didn't see any indication that it was marked already. So there you have it. This is a great little family heirloom table built by Lars Bordsen in the first half of the 20th century. And as I worked on it, I really began to appreciate the pocketry work he's done here and I really like it a lot. I have about 12 hours into this job and these are the tools I used. I think it looks pretty good and I can only hope that Lars would approve.