Gerstner & Sons Tool Chest Restoration

[Music] all right guys so I'm with Paul Martin he is a master craftsman here at Gerstner & Sons and he's the one that is gonna be overlooking and doing this full restoration on my Gerstner tool shows so well good to meet you good to meet you Adam yeah it's it's a it's wonderful to meet you thanks so much for coming by it's a pleasure to be here and seeing your work here this is just amazing yeah isn't it great they did great yeah it's awesome being the original location seeing all your tools everything is just a wonderful place that's right yeah so he feel like talking to the viewers and telling them about how you're gonna handle the restoration on this box yeah absolutely yeah I do the restorations here and the one thing about you understand here is it's not really the box it's not really the the chest this is about people it's about love thanks and respect that's right we want to think about the person that used this box this was a working box the guy who used this went in everyday that was from 1965 he went in he did his job I'm not really sure what kind of shop he was that perhaps it was a machine shop or perhaps a automotive shop but you can tell this is he had his tools in here there's a lot of grease all over it it's it was well worked what we want to do is bring it back to some sort of of a restored condition but we don't want to lose that guy that guy was here and we want to maintain some of that we want to recognize him and we want to respect the years that he put into this box yes so that's our to start with there really isn't any formula for any of this thing every one of them is individual so we start off by saying you're on a quote sheet people will send them in in your case you did a video of it that's interesting everybody has a different way of doing it okay so you send this over and say okay let's let's look at it and see what has to be done and then we come up with some options in in in this case you're looking for the full restoration and what we do is figure out how much time would be involved in that and then the people in the office will quote at a time also then we have a lot of questions I made up a quote and I sent that to them and then they sent me the office sent me a list of the things that you want to done and what I was thinking that we could do is start off on that list and then I'll go through each of one of those things and explain to you what what all is going to happen okay sounds good um you start off that says strip and sand the drawer front strip insane and hold the whole chest yeah that means that we're going to actually sand off all of the existing finish put in a new stain and refinish it yeah in this case it's warranted it's a good idea sometimes the finish is not in especially bad condition and we can just clean it sometimes folks like the the real rustic kind of look to it the real beat-up kind of looking all I want to do is just clean it off perhaps polish it yeah in in this case we're gonna go right down so they don't look at it and I'll say well what kind of condition is that is that surface one of the things that we look for in particular you sure you hear in the back one of the things we look for is the condition of the veneers in the back and along the tops here sometimes when a box gets up against a wall it collects a lot of moisture here sometimes if it gets caught in a flood or a fire or something like that these are gonna be problems with some of the do veneers these pieces in the back on the top are veneer plywood pieces on the sides of the solid oak and this by the way this is white oak Oh white oak is used to use a quarter sawn white oak and the reason that uses this is furniture grade oh it's not just regular stuff this is quarter sawed and that's those marks there you can see that's the that's part of the game they're called Gray's and that that's that's that's the beauty of the open when you look at a piece of fine furniture you'll see that in the white out so we look at that if if any of that needs to be repaired yes will repair it blew it down reglue it set it up sand it out so that it looks like it's new yeah and then the next thing here refit the drawers to allow smooth operation now they've been around for 50 years and it will swell it will contract sometimes things won't work the way they were and we want to double check that and make sure that works in this particular case I noticed that this drawer was hanging up I'm sure why that is I think if that's something to do it across the back here we do on the top here with something along here and the other thing that can happen is in a box these partitions can drop down a little bit doesn't that what you're talking about is that because people are putting too much weight in a box sometimes they're made they're made to take up they're made to work it's just a matter of age sometimes the glues will dry out a little bit too might drop down it's used this smell in many ways you can say well that's not especially bad if that's the only problem if you just get a little bit of rub after 50 years that's no big deal so we'll take care of that make sure that that works also you would mentioned this one here is this this drawer here's the one that was this is broken yeah it was falling apart there and you know to be honest anybody they can get a shot of that this is the one that's yeah coming apart there on the side let me let me just get doing one of these here see now to be honest anybody can glue this back together that's really no big deal and you probably should if you're if you have a cursor and proxy and and and a piece like this falls off after 50 years sure that's a good idea to go up and pull it back one of the things that we have to we can offer here is that we do as part of the factory restoration we can use the same tools that were used to build the box to restore in this in this case here this is a big old clamp yeah you know this old-style clamp made from long islands that comes from Long Island City in New York Wow you know we open that up we put it on clamp it up and that's that's just you know that's the kind of thing that you're getting here at a factory restoration that's amazing that's the big deal using the original tools to restore the box yes created over 50 years ago right this box has come home yeah these walls have seen this box before yeah so when we put that there's a clamp over there that's used to put them together that way I can tell you that a lot of these clamps were used in order to put the drawers together the mirror will be set that we have the template over this is the template over thatwe will actually put here and that'll tell where to put the mirror so we'll we'll take this mirror off put new felt in and then we'll use that same template to reset the mirror okay it's fun it could be you know you obviously you could put the mirror in there that's really no big deal but the fun the fun part is that it's reset exactly this and believe it I have actually had some where I go to put the nail in and the nail is in the same spot well and so so you're using like the same template exactly the same template yeah it's just you know it's no big deal it's just a bit so it's a piece it's a piece of wood it depends abut but it is it's fun you know it's that's part of part of this I sold it again we we want to maintain the integrity we want ain't Ain the authenticity I want to show respect for the guy who had this and for the people who are who own them now see because a lot of these they'll go into a living room they'll go into a bedroom somebody says I want to use that for to put in to use it as a jewelry box and it will go in on top of a dresser or they'll put it in to in living room and say this is this was grandpa's tool chest but remember grandpa's gone now but we'll remember him and the days that he put in his heed the family yeah that's there they make great heirloom pieces for the family absolutely absolutely so then we go down here we're gonna refit the drawers make sure that they work on ah okay now we go on to the to the story of the hardware yeah this is kind of an interesting thing in the world of coins you never clean the coin you just you have the coin and been circulated and that much where and that's it so you don't touch it the other hand if you bought a new car last week and something on that car broke you would want a new piece right away you wouldn't want to mess around with it so those are the extremes now there's a that's a continuum and there's a there are different ways you can think about this you might say this guy had this box and he used this box and he used these clips and he used this lock and that's what we want to maintain that's what we want to keep all right fine that's part of the discussion never happens another thing would be well we want to upgrade it we want to put we want to put new hardware because we're going to put it into a living room or put it into a bedroom wanna make sure that it looks nice and it will indeed look nicer with with that hardware now one of the things that we can offer here in a factory restoration is we can say here is new hardware with our not with our name on it installed at the factory and that counts towards the authenticity right thumb to say no no I want to keep the original stuff fine we can do that or we can add we used to do a thing where we replayed it the others but you can you know more about this than I do that that kind of stuff is extremely expensive let me tell you the truth I think that's actually putting a little too fine a point on it okay it can be done but you know you really wonder if when you get into like hundreds and hundreds of dollars to do plate you say you know is it really that important especially when you have so now what I did here is I took yours yeah so I this is yours no I did a little video of this show and my viewers and I had some people mention that I should reuse the original hardware on this restoration but the option is obviously that you can replace the art where as an option with new personal hardware or as you're speaking three policies and reuse the original hardware yes yes and that's the sort of thing that makes it individual yeah you tell me and I'll go either way with it now what I did decide is they the obvious question is what's it gonna look like so what I did is I took a few pieces off the chest and I said let me let me do them up so you get an idea of what it would be like and then oh you could compare them to the newer so this was a corner I took off here this was the original corner here I took this corner off and I brought it to the wire wheel we have a sonic cleaner but frankly is there a little bit more than then sonic wave try the sonic cleaner but it really takes a wire brush with oil and you can see here this is this is the piece with a wire brush and oil and you would compare that to a new piece this is the new one so yes this is the original but understand that doesn't have the finish it doesn't have that it doesn't have the the shine to it also and again you know more about this than I do it so this was not coated so that you have to be careful with that you have to keep it polished and you might have to worry about some rust showing up because then this is going to hold up a little better yeah here is this catch that from that spot right there yeah this is what it looked like originally and this is the wire brush and then you would compare that to the new now understand this is indeed nickel-plated brass with the Gersten on it okay so it's not exactly stuff that you might pick up at the hardware store right it's good you know authentic this is only available through Gerstner Sons that's groundsmen yeah this is yeah sure so that's a cursor cat will go on there like that so I believe to just to keep the parts original I think I'm gonna opt to just have you polish all the parts and we're just gonna keep all the original Hardware on on the box okay so what we're gonna do is we're gonna we're gonna do the wire brush okay that's gone okay and then another good point to make you know just for viewers watching that you know maybe maybe you find a Gerstner box that's missing hardware that you know this is a good time you know you can you can call burstner and you can purchase these kits you know so that you have replacement parts for these boxes if you need them that's right the pulls you know the drawer pulls the locks the latches everything so this was this one I took off of this drawer here and I polished it out and that's what it would look like there when it goes back on yep so we'll have a new finish there's will put the we'll put the current stain on the oh good and that will indeed be a little a little bit darker than our production models now because the wood is darker okay so it'll be a little lighter than this but a little bit darker than regular production just just to give you an idea but and getting it all it'll all match I'm sure it's all gonna look beautiful though yeah by the way when I go to replace it another thing I noticed here when I go to fix this drawer and fix it up there's a big crack here I don't know how that happened but that's gonna be fixed oh I didn't see that yeah and that's in the that's in the cover here yeah that's in this lid they're calling the front lid okay and I noticed it was tight here yeah so it's tight there and then this lock is missing as well yeah yeah so this will be these will be fixed right that one's a little tight there's a little snug here so that should a that should work a little bit better yeah so we'll replace that we'll make sure that's working rubber better we'll tighten up that crack there good so that's we're going to put new felt now way back when we would these these felts a lot of them will come out we use this because with like machinist tools and get something you wanted to have you want to have a nice felt bottom you put your tools in there and they use working day by day you might toss them in you don't want to take the tool toss it onto the metal it just it's been dented out that's not a nice little tool solution but every once in a while the guys would want to replace the felt you know you'd have a box about there for working for 5-10 years you say it's time for me because obviously it gets pretty worn out you can see this yeah they get worn and dirty and a lot of lot of oil stains in there and metal chips so we use a water-soluble hide glue for that reason good it's that way we can take them out so the first thing that I'm gonna do when I start working on this chest now this one pulls out pretty easily so we'll just take that out and throw it away yeah a lot of times here there's a little bit more sticky when they go on to the to the to the to the to the would so the way to get them off and now I believe there's some sort of a video about that as they will actually just brush water on it let that water soak in and I'll break down the glue okay that's how that's done so the first thing I'll do is I'll brush them to make sure that those those come out and I'll start working on taking the Box apart we actually take all of the hardware off good and in this case we'll wire brush it and then do the refinish and then we'll reinstall all of that so a lot of times now we I will probably replace this with a green felt and you said that the green felt but we do offer like a black felt or red sometimes when people are using it for a jewelry box or for display purposes say say somebody wants to use it for wristwatches they might want a different color now is a good time to change the color right you know I personally like the classic green for the machinist box I do like the red and black sounds great too but just I like the classic green blue cheese tools in there that's right yeah well certainly that and that but that's one of the things we want we to offer as an option that's cool now it's the time you know it can can can people order fill kits for their boxes yes okay yes there's actually a thing what did they say they give them so many yards you call in the size of the box what they have and then you thought now you do have to cut it yourself okay you get a roll of it yeah so you know you'd have to cut it so that it fits in there and then you glue it in yourself okay yes there is such a thing as as I felt and it is a little bit different it's a starched belt so it lays flat which is different from a regular which is regular felt that you might pick up at the fabric store it's got kind of a wave to it it's not a stiff okay so this stuff is nice starch gel you can go in there nice and flat all right so that's felt then yes and then we do a final final inspection make sure that it's working right replace this kind of thing yep that's basically it I'm looking at this this job probably take me two days okay there if I was really working fast I could probably start it and get it done inside of a day and a half but I don't know I like to do it that way I like to turn or take a visit and the other part of it is I never really know what I'm gonna run into and to take this apart or find out well this this hung up or this is broken and this needs to be replaced I want to get to that to the spot where I don't want to rush through it so I figured this will probably be two days right okay well I'm looking forward to seeing the finished product sure it's gonna be great I I love it it's gonna be it's gonna be a lot of fun to work on this one because it's in pretty good shape really some of them have come in this they've really beat up you want not have to reconstruct things I can imagine I've seen some rough ones out there this was a top of a box that had to be replaced so you can see the veneer is falling off and this this particular one doesn't have a handle yeah but what I had to do in this case was actually take that out take these pieces off remanufacture this piece in the middle and then clamp it all back together well and keep it all keep it all square so that the whole thing works okay and what's cool about that is we got I did this with the same tools that we used to put it together in the first that's again amazing it's amazing is that fun yeah absolutely well I appreciate you going over the restoration process with me and all of the viewers out there on what it takes to do a restoration here at Gerstner and I'm looking forward to seeing the finished product there and now maybe you guys will be able to give a few pictures maybe even a little video of the process to be able to share and I'll definitely be sharing once once it's finished they're in the shop and I can't wait to actually get it and put it to use yeah I'm gonna start working on it now I understand that you're gonna go off on a tour of the shop yes maybe when you finish with the tour you swing back and you see how far it is Oh that'll be great yeah I'll come back by and say hello and see what you've done on the box great all right is he in a bit okay thank you how are we doing Paul yeah I'm back right here it is we got to do the shop tour and see how all the wonderful nursery chests are created so how is the house the restoration process going great it's going great okay we get it all apart okay you finding any any hidden secrets in there anything that you weren't aware of this I usually save little bit submitter member yet yeah the decimal equivalent yeah because sometimes they have a little you know advertising sometimes there are dates on the icon and I'll just include that in the pieces I don't give that away okay I do not okay so we'll have to see there's a no here at number and I'll see if they can come up with a key for you okay there was one thing I did want to mention is that I do want to preserve the original notes down in there uh-huh from the original owner I just want to make sure that yeah we don't I'm I only work up to about here okay I leave all that alone absolutely yeah that and also all the numbers in the back okay oh I wanted to ask you about that can you explain what these numbers represent to the viewers here that's the that's the position of the draw this would be for box number 422 so this is telling us that this this is box number 420 here okay yeah there's 420 to that and this is the second position drawer okay what happens is they'll fit they fit the drawers and then they all go off in different spots okay the boxes fill one spot the drawer is going on the spot the top lids going another to the front list of the although different artists they're processed and finished at the end they reassemble it all so I know this is going to go to box number four in the second position okay count it down this way okay all right that's what I was thinking was going on there but I wasn't fully aware so I wanted to I wanted to verify that by asking and we always say that another another thing that you can find is that guys will open the door this way yes yep that's kind of fun right oh yeah yeah lot of lot of greasy fingerprints over the years getting on now I don't take those away I leave those there are fine if anything I might finish around here but mostly I just clean it and I leave this part here yeah cool that's where the guy was one thing I did find is their systems this there's a separation here okay and that's going to bring this whole thing down here and that's why this was rubbing against that top drawer yeah okay so that's an easy fix and then just get in there push it up and that's that that's fixed then when the when the new felt goes on I didn't really see that until I took the old belt out okay well we're really looking forward to seeing the finished restoration oh thanks a lot for yeah it's been great yeah we got the full tour got to got to see the whole shop and they took me around we even got to see the old bull and I shop Josh got see that good old machinery or punch presses and everything the entire process from raw stock to finished but you really liked that was kind of the evolution of building tools yeah yeah it was over the century it's been fabulous great there's been really enjoyed all right [Music] [Music] [Music] to begin [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] very exciting day the shop here guys I just got my crate back from Gerstner & Sons up in dayton ohio and master craftsman paul martin has completed the restoration on my Gerstner tool chest and they've sent it back to me i have not seen what the completed box looks like so i am ready to get it done credit here and let you see what it looks like and I'm ready to check it out for myself so let's get this thing on box so Paul told me that I win the award for best crating job of all the boxes that he has received for people that sent these chests back to them I definitely wanted to make sure that this thing was protected and I'm glad that I did because when I met the UPS guy out there at the road you can see that it's kind of busted open right here on this side and the handles coming off when I met the UPS guy at his truck as I seen a pull off he was actually rolling this thing in firend out from the back of his truck up to the front cab to meet me and you know as soon as I saw that I'm like you know I'm doing the role of my dad I'm like really so I'm glad that i padded it well created it well so I'm hoping that we've got a well-protected chest inside here sure is looking good yep get some of this padding out from the side here is just hung up in there [Applause] all right here we go first look as we had mentioned in the previous video when we were talking to mr. Paul this is all the original hardware on this so all he did was just wire brush those things you know all the corners even the screws there all the ribs and all he did was just clean them up and we're just reuse them the handles everything it's all original all replaceable components though if you need these parts you can definitely buy these from Gerstner and the true Gerstner will have Gerstner Dayton Ohio they're on all the parts look at that man look at that got us a new mirror right there we even got a we even got a key to the lock how about that that is cool very nice there's the drawers right how nice so we had one of these that was damaged I believe it was I believe it was this one we had the damage it was either this one or the one underneath that might have been this one right here I believe it was this this corner right here this joint that was damaged I love the finish on this box man it looks beautiful very nice all the pools are original done the same way they're just polished up very nice and then we made sure that we maintained our notes that were handwritten down here in the bottom as well there's the original stamp and then the the note written from re clapper 1965 the original owner of the box we just wanted to make sure that we preserve this history in the box which which they do anyway so that's really cool really really nice Paul done a nice job on this restoration this was in a this decimal chart here was was in the lid so he saved that for me I can just keep that with the box there now I was just gonna check out the rest of the drawers here and I picked the green felt just to kind of make it you know keep the original coloring you can pick whatever color felt that you want they have several colors to pick from so I love it it's beautiful we got the original logo there the emblem that they put on the drawer that's maintained and left on there it looks really good I'm real happy with it beautiful job I'm real happy with the way this restoration turned out on this tool chest I just think it's absolutely beautiful and Paul did a great job he is definitely a great craftsman a master craftsman with what he does and I think he did an awesome job you know explaining the the process of you know how to restore a box properly and the you know the things that you want to do and then some of the things that you don't want to do to these to these old Gerstner tool chests you know leaving some of the things original and and you know maybe some of the things that you do want to replace in it you know like these Hardware pieces right there I took this cue of leaving those kind of based off some of views that or some of the viewers had suggested not replacing those and leaving them original so you know after hearing from a bunch of folks there I decided to just leave these leave these on their or leave the original Hardware pieces on there and just roll with them because these seem to be a pretty sought-after item for Gartner tool chest restorations so I didn't have them coated that's another option you could you could take these pieces and have them you know nickel coated if you wanted to to to preserve them but it adds to the cost and it is pretty expensive to go that route so we just opted to wire brush them and polish them out and I shouldn't have any problems with my climate-controlled shop here with any kind of rusting issues but there's things that you can do to preserve that metal there as well you can put some things on there to help protect that but the the finish of the wood just looks gorgeous I'm real happy with it it just looks very pretty I love the finish of it and all of the drawers now are fitting properly the the lid the Liz is fitting into the box just like it's supposed to be you know Paul fix that problem where we had it was separating there and we had some issues up here at the top of the box that he had to address so you know he he did what he what he does as a craftsman and he restored the box back to good looking and good functioning just like it's supposed to be and it just it's beautiful I love it such a wonderful job there and I don't know if we had mentioned in the previous videos I can't remember now but you know he's got he's got a fixture where this triangular you know mirror goes and it's the original fixture the tool that they use that they put in the top of this lid here that sets this in the right location and the one that he used to put this new mirror in there is the one that they used back whenever this box was originally made back in 65 they're still using that same tool it's just amazing the heritage of that company and the tools that they use they're just absolutely amazing I want to give a big thanks to Scott Campbell the president of Gerstner and sons for offering up this really cool restoration on my Gerstner tool chest right here and also for collaborating with me and allowing me to come up to the shop there and you know providing the shop tour so that I could share that with all of my viewers I just thought that was totally cool that I could come up into their shop and film it and share it with everyone there on the channel and of course this beautiful restoration it was just really really nice of us got to offer that up so thank you thank you very much Scott that was great of you and Paul Paul Burgess has been great working with you you know I've been I've been communicating with Paul on the you know getting up there and doing the shop tour and just the communication back and forth Paul's been great to work with and then Paul Martin the master craftsman that was overseeing the restoration of this tool chest he did a fantastic job of this restoration and I loved sitting there and having conversations with him about you know what it takes to do the restoration of these tool chests and the history of that company it's just absolutely amazing you know if they've been there since 1906 still have some of the original machines and tooling in that place that they still use today and looking around and seeing the walls in that place and just knowing the history of that building and what is what has went through and all the chests that it has made it really is a fantastic company they really know their stuff they build a fine product these tool chests are top top of their class so I really hope that if you consider buying a wooden tool chest that you will consider a Gerstner and it is something that you will cherish for the rest of your life it is an heirloom item you know if you buy one of these it is something that you can pass down to your family to your children to your grandchildren it'll be in your family for the rest of your life you know and if you have one of these types of tool chests maybe you buy one used like I did you know and you want a little bit of help with your restoration call it Gerstner they'll be willing to help you out with your restoration as well they got all the parts that you need or if you need somebody to help you do the restoration like I did they'll be sure to help you out they do a great job and I just love them fantastic company what else can I say about them thank you very much Gerstner I really appreciate the hospitality that you have shown me and my viewers really appreciate it I hope everybody's enjoyed the video and thanks again Paul for the awesome restoration on this tool chest you did a great job [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: Abom79

Views: 145,403

Rating: 4.9290709 out of 5

Keywords: abom79, gerstner, gerstner and sons, gerstner & sons, h. gerstner & sons, gerstner chests, gerstner tool chest, gerstner wooden chests, wooden tool chest, machinist chest, machinist tool chest, tool storage, hardware storage, hobby storage, jewelry storage, made in usa, made in america, hand make, maker, wood working, furniture making, hand crafted, craftsman, master craftsman, restoration, wood restoration, dayton ohio

Id: Nmdy_8ovit0

Length: 47min 15sec (2835 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 16 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/JamesLahey]

Love Gerstner & Sons chests.

I have a 1963 2610 that has never seen the inside of a shop or a speck of grease. PIcked it up for $400 and it is one of my most prized possessions.

[u/dagremlin]

Totally thought it was that harbor freight wooden tool box. Looked very similar.