Restoring a Veneered Tabletop Edge - Thomas Johnson Antique Furniture Restoration

I'm Tom Johnson, Thomas Johnson, Antique Furniture Restoration, in Gorham, Maine. This is a really nice tabletop, satin wood veneer. It's not just a regular sunburst pattern. This highly figured veneer, you can see, is like a compass pattern with the same veneer but a slightly different figure, not as bold, filling in these parts here. And the problem with this table is the edge. The edge is veneered also, and there's a lot of veneer chipped away. Some loose veneer. It also is not finished to the same level as the top. So I've got to repair all this veneer. I'll get someone to help me put this on the bench, and then get the veneer and start repairing it. This is really nice maple. It's even got a little bit of curl to it, a little bit of figure. And you know, I'm not sure what the wood is on this edge exactly, but it looks plain like maple. It's kind of grainy. But I noticed that this veneer too, for maple, is kind of grainy. I think it's going to work fine. So the first thing I want to do is set up and cut some strips of this veneer the same width as the edge of the table. So when working with veneer like this, especially when you're cutting it across grain, the pieces you cut become very weak, so you want to back them up with some tape. And the edge of the table measures exactly one inch, and I have some one-inch tape here, so that makes it pretty convenient. I'll be able to actually mark off the strips with the tape. I hope you can see. I think you could in the close-up. The top veneer goes over the top edge of the banding veneer on the edge. In other words, they veneered this edge first, then this veneer went over. So I'm trying to leave that edge of veneer right here that's sticking out over my patch, and I'll try to get my patch up under that little ledge right there. So I'm getting ready to glue down the veneer to the edge. I'm going to use these clamps, three-way clamps, designed for doing this kind of a job. I'm going to put down a piece of tape here. I've got to protect the surface of the tabletop. A piece of tape, folded sandpaper, a piece of wood. I've already put the wooden sandpaper underneath. Then I'll position my veneer in place. I'll use hide glue, position it in place, and then put my clamps on. I've got a thin piece of 16th-inch aluminum and a piece of bending plywood to use as a caul. Okay, I've let this dry overnight. Let's see what we've got. All right, that looks good. So now I'm just going to start working my way right around the table. That was probably the largest patch. I have others. Most of them are pretty small. So on some of these smaller pieces, I'm going to use a new kind of clamp that I got called a bandy clamp. I've run out of edge clamps, but the clamping time on the hide glue is pretty short. So I'll just take my first clamp off. It's been on for a couple hours. I think this glue, as long as it clamps on for about an hour, that's probably okay. Although I'll let it dry overnight before I work on it. But the clamping time is relatively short. All right, that's 20 veneer patches. And so now I've got to sand them. So the next step is to trim the patches, you know, where they overhang. I'll do that with a chisel. And then I'll sand. I'm going to sand with a hundred grit. And that initial sanding, I'll sand with the grain. And of course the grain runs vertically. Okay, once I'm done with a hundred, there's a lot of little spaces and gaps, like along here, even one there, there, that I'm going to fill with wood putty. Okay, I've finished sanding all my repairs with a hundred grit in the direction of the grain. So now I'm going to sand with 150. And now also, I'm going to sand against the grain. I'm going to sand this way. And as long as I do that just with 150 and then really well with 220, it'll be fine. Scratch marks won't show. It gets a very light stain. It'll work fine. There's a lot of areas here where the, not where my repairs were, where the original veneer meets the top, and there's a little gap there. And I'm going to try to, you know, I'm trying to, as I go along, fill those with a little FAMO wood. Okay, I've gone, done the whole edge, I mean all my repairs with 150. Now I'll do it all again with 220. And I'm sanding with 220 until I can see, I can see my scratch marks like from the 150 and I can see them disappearing with the 220. Okay, I finished sanding with 220. And yesterday I glued up a piece of the same veneer that I used for the edge and I've sanded it to 220. And I'm going to try some stains out on it. The first stain I'm going to try is some white gold milk. The color's good. It's a little light, but I like light. I'd rather have light than too dark. I think I may try this on the table itself. And if it's light, that's okay. I'll seal it with shellac and then add a little more color to it. Okay, I've let the stain dry for a couple minutes and now I'll wipe it off. I'll kind of pat it off. Remember, the stain was light, so I don't want to wipe it off too much. Now, this is fast drying stain. I'll set the timer and let it dry for an hour. So the stain is dry and so now I'll apply a coat of shellac. And first I'll put a coat on the sand. Well, that looks pretty good. I was hoping to have a little bit more of a yellowing effect. It doesn't seem to have much effect, but I'll put my first coat of shellac on and then I'll see what I can do about the color. It's not changing the color too much. The shellac is not, but my new wood is lighter than the old wood and that's what's important. I'll go back after the shellac dries and then figure out exactly what I'm going to do to blend it in. The initial coat of shellac has dried, so now I've got to add a little color. You can see my new patch, it's a good color, but the wood surrounding it is a little bit darker, a little bit grainy, and that's good. I'm going to try first to add a little bit of raw umber color to some shellac and apply that just to the patches. First, I'm going to go over this with a 500 paper, just lightly. It may be a little too dark, I'm not sure. I can always add some more shellac, but I'm going to try it anyway. I can always wipe it off. Yeah, it is a little dark, but by then wiping it slightly, it gives me a little bit of that grainy effect and blends in pretty well. In fact, when I stood up, stood back a little bit, I had a hard time even spotting where this was. I think I'm just going to keep going like this and wipe it off as needed. Actually, I seem to have just the right amount on the brush now, and it goes on pretty well without even the need to wipe. As I work my way around the whole perimeter here, there's lots of areas, even where I didn't work, the old veneer, where there's color variations. There's a lot of color variation in this edge. I'm able to even go and touch up some of these light spots too and take the curse off of them a little bit, a lot of different areas. The touch-ups look good. It's funny, when I'm up close like that, I can really see a lot of variation. When you stand back and look at it, it looks a lot better, thank goodness. What I'm going to do, though, is I'm going to take some light golden oak aerosol toner and I'm actually going to go over this entire edge. I think that will really pull it all together. That was definitely a good move. In fact, some of these areas I may hit a second time. I'll let this dry a bit, and then I'll check it again and hit it wherever I think it might be necessary. It's really looking good now. OK, I've let the golden oak dry for about a half an hour. Now I'm going to spray it again but with clear gloss lacquer. OK, I'm about ready for the final step on the edge. The first thing I'm going to do is clean the top. It's not bad, but I'm going to go over it. There was a little even gradu on it when I picked it up. I've got some cleaner I buy at the hardware store. This is an industrial paper towel. You spray the cleaner directly onto the towel, not onto the top itself. OK, I've cleaned it. Now I'm going to go over the top. This is just an extra fine buffing compound that you use by hand. I'm just going to go over the top quickly to make sure that the shine is completely back. Especially on the edge here where I was working and might have a little bit of overspray. This will take it right off. Now for the final step on the edge of the table I'm just going to French polish it. I'm going to use a product that's made for French polishing. Alright, there we go. This beautiful satin wood compass design top. There's really nothing wrong with the top itself. The edge had a lot of problems and I think it looks pretty good.