restoration-blog

Update, and read my articles in Berkshire Homestyle

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 03:07:01 +0100

Hello blog readers,

After I started this blog, writing again after not doing so for some years, I started to write again for a local regional lifestyle magazine. It's called Berkshire Homestyle and can be viewed online each month and it is archived.

My time has been spent on that and not his blog.

Go here: http://berkshirehomestyle.com/

Look in the November, January, March and May issues.

Let me know what you think.

A little too clean!

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 15:56:58 +0100

The following is from a posting on a professional finishing website conversation. Dick, a finisher, took in a job to “clean up” or refinish a piece of furniture. The customer was then unhappy with the cleaner look:

>>" Dear Groop: I now have it back in my shop to try to make it look old ------ help. Dick"

[Dick may have been heavy handed in his processes, though he said he wasn't, or the piece may have just had a lot of age related marks and coloring that were lost in a normal refinishing. I did not see the piece, so my remarks cover a range of possible issues.]

Dick,

I echo some of the comments already made and have some additional suggestions.

First, and pretty important, is anticipating the customer's expectations. You need to know what your process will likely end up looking like, and check that out with the customer when you are picking it up or discussing it on delivery to your shop, wherever you first see it. They tell you what they want, you do your best to understand, and then you need to shift their expectations if needed or tell them that if they really want "that", they will loose the other thing, or it will look like such and such, and so forth. You both need to work at describing things as best you can and come to agreements at the outset.

I also suggest they change their use habits if I see that the piece has suffered from abuse, both to protect how my fresh surface will perform, and for them to be happy with the look longer. If they use it again like they did when it was a wreck, it will look wrecked again prematurely. Quite often a piece ends up in my shop after a lot of use over a long period of time and the change from before and after can be dramatic. And I may even be doing a "restoration" type job on it, not a "refinish". Customers are thrilled with the change.

Sometimes a collection of dirt, oil, wax, soot, etc., is the only finish on a piece. In this case, cleaning equals stripping, and you need to know this in advance. Do not assume that you and the customer share the same understanding of what words mean. Words such as "clean", "polish", "satin", "sheen", "polyurethane", "french polish", "red", 'mahogany", "antique" etc. You need to grock their feeling of what is acceptable, even desirable; for instance what is acceptible "distress" and what is "damage" that needs repairing.

As for the aging of the "cleaned" surface, you need to practice techniques of adding back some of what you removed. Try to remember what kind of marks there were or shading. After explaining to the customer that it was in fact just "dirt" that you "washed" off, and that you did not "skin" the piece with sanding, ask him to describe what he remembers and what he wants now. You both know that the original muck is gone and you cannot give back the DNA and all the exact gunk that was there! It does not exist in a jar or a film you can just replace. You need to discuss a little bit what you can do for him and see if you can align his expectations with what you can create.

There have already been some good comments about mucking up or "antiquing" a surface. You should practice on a separate piece. Get creative and try to make mistakes. Be sloppy, break rules, screw up, have fun. Use a can to let a dark stain take the shape of a water mark left by a glass (perhaps not the whole circumference). Make dings and dents that will take a glaze left behind after wiping the glaze away selectively. Rub some spots too much, use dark grain filler and leave some behind. Remove parts of some marks with actions that imitate natural rubbing or cleaning motions.

Look at older pieces and see what is there. Be careful not to create a look that will appear faked. Talk to someone who uses faux techniques. Also be careful to have the newly faked surfaces coordinate with the other parts. My guess is that, to look right, you will recreate less muck'n'stuff than was there before, now that the whole piece has been "cleaned" some. It is a challenge to make the surface look natural and not as if someone tried too hard.

One aspect to the art of restoration is to improve the look of a piece without making it look too new. We want the soft sophisticated patina that gentle aging adds to the surface. When abuse or neglect require us to intervene, when "distress" trips over the line and becomes "damage", we must work with sensitivity and try to keep what we can of the aspects of the look of the old that we like. Many techniques and observations are involved in a successful restoration.

It may not feel like it but this is an opportunity to work on all these issues. The customer may end up more pleased than you think when he sees that you have been able to give him back what he thought had been lost. You will have new tools in your bag of tricks. It can be a challenge for all of us sometimes to Think Positively!

Frank MacGruer

Austerlitz,NY

Sticky business

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 04:07:10 +0100

Glues.

Holding things together. Making it possible to be adventurous in design, and to assemble objects in ways that would otherwise be impossible.

Wheat, fish, hide, mucilage, cyano-acrylate, epoxy, resorcinol, contact cement, hot melt, acrylics, urethanes, one part, two part, multipart, casein, polyvinyl acetate, and on and on..... For a bit more fun you can check the Wiki entry for glue: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glue

While it is possible to design and build a piece of furniture without glue, it is far more common that glue is an integral part of the construction. And when it comes to repairing furniture, several types of glues may be used every day.

Today I worked on two chairs that had breaks, chips and some loose parts. Some of the loose parts I was not going to take apart (more on that kind of decision in another post). I used Hide glue, Yellow aliphatic (Titebond), and Cyanoacrylate glues.

Where I could dismantle and clean the joints and breaks, I used the yellow. Where I could not dismantle but had good “rub-in” access, I used warm hide glue. And where I had very little access but the joint needed firming up, I “injected” CA glue of two different viscosities.

Clamping completes the process. Proper clamping is an important part of a successful glue repair. Not clamping can lead to premature failure of a bond. The strength of a clamped joint is many times that of an unpressurized glue joint. Clamping can be complicated and especially difficult sometimes, but it is still necessary. It can make the break not break again.

Oldest profession on the planet!

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 18:07:18 +0100

Hello, and welcome to my new site,

I will be posting blog entries discussing topics regarding my work, Antique Restoration, and life subjects that relate to the work or the concepts explored. You can expect me to wander, ramble, and leave some topics open-ended or unresolved.

Your comments, professionally inspired or otherwise, are always welcome. Please feel free to ask a question that might start a blog discussion, or just bring up a matter that interests you.

Restoration vies for the title "oldest profession" on the planet! Man/womankind has been repairing its furnishings, improving design, and generally making the most out of limited resources since forever.

We are outlived by much of what we create. Most of us are painfully aware of how much is wasted in our daily lives. Maybe not by you, but by too many of us. Are we really going to change this?

On my own behalf, and for all those in related trades, I certainly hope that more and more people will see the value in maintaining and rehabilitating those things we already own, rather than throwing the good stuff away because of the misguided idea that new is better.

One of my responsibilities to a customer is to honestly inform them of the intrinsic worth of the piece of furniture we are discussing. There are many aspects to the concept of value (for later discussion), and a very important point to start with is whether or not the piece in question is of good quality, made of materials that will last and be repairable now and for some time to come.

I hope to hear from everyone interested in conservation, restoration, refinishing and all related topics. Let's let it rip!

May your life glow with a lovely patina,

Frank