Old File Cabinet RESTORATION

[Music] hello beautiful people and welcome to another video in this one I'll be working on this absolutely ginormous piece of furniture it's definitely the biggest set of drawers I've ever worked on I think this is called architect stores something that people store blueprints or mops in and I had to make two trips in order to buy this because it wouldn't fit in my car unfortunately this was not constructed out of solid wood most of it was particle board or chip board whatever you want to call it and some pieces of solid oak the veneer on it was in a really bad shape and I wanted to replace it as soon as I saw it I only decided to work on this project knowing how expensive it was going to be to buy the veneer and everything else is because I wanted to keep it for myself I didn't have anyone to help me move this and as you can see even one of those drawers was almost as big as me and every time I wanted to move it or do something with it I had to take it apart and move it one drawer at the time that's how heavy it was it's swollen in some places I think there was some water damage I mean obviously there's million stains so and I think there's no way to remove the vineer without getting some of the board with it because it's glued I actually try to unscrew this and flip it upside down and use the unders side but it's not going to work because um it's not flat removing the veneer from it would be a huge pain and I think a lot of the ch board would just come off with the veneer so I would just end up with lots of gouges all over it so I think I'm just going to remove everything that's loose sand it roughly I'll fill all the low spots with wood filler and I think I'll apply a piece of very thin plywood with veneer on top of it or maybe just veneer I think this is the most reasonable way to fix it without replacing the whole thing I sanded the top with 80 grid sandpaper to remove any pieces of loose veneer and high spots from swollen chipboard my plan is to cut off most of this trim I want to leave a little bit of this uh solid wood glued to the MDF make it more rigid and keep this Edge from like crumbling hope there's no nails or screws in it cuz I can't see any but we're about to find out I'm going to do the same thing for the rest of [Music] them when I was done with that I went to my favorite supplier to pick up some flexible Cherry venure I've used many other venues from them before but this was the first time I was actually getting cherry and I thought it would be nice to try something new and so far this was about $260 and unfortunately it turned out that two sheets of veneer was not enough so I had to go back and get another one and including the cost of the instant cement which was about about $50 probably a bit more plus the $120 that I paid for this on Facebook Marketplace it's over $500 already anyhow so we know this is going to be super expensive but that's okay there was some sort of lock that was attached to the set of drawers but it didn't come with them so I had to do something about those cutouts because I was going to cover them with veneer they didn't need to be perfect because as I mentioned I was going to cover them with veneer but they had to be flush with the surface and I did exactly the same thing for the bottom half of this piece because if you haven't noticed this actually consists of two separate pieces that you just stuck on top of each other and you might have noticed that there was a hole in the top where the lock would go into so I had to cut a piece of wood to basically fill in that [Music] hole [Music] and of course as always there was a lot of sanding I was actually considering making a different base or different legs for this piece but because how long it is and because it's not made of solid wood it would definitely sck in the middle so the base that was on it actually made sense so I just left it the back panels were actually in a decent condition there was some mold on them and they were super dirty so I just cleaned them with white spirit and I used vinegar to get rid of the mold what's up and I guess I had done enough work for the day so it was time for a cat break youve come to inspect my project huh I'll give you a Snacks by the way these snacks were sent by one of you guys so thank you the cats appreciate it [Music] after a good clean and some vinegar to get rid of the mold I applied restore a finish and I was pretty happy with how the panels [Music] looked I did some trimming and some sanding and then I had to fix the base because the joints needed regluing but because the base was attached to the bottom with screws and one of the screw was actually broken so I had to cut it in order to take this piece out and glue it back in place I always like to make sure that everything is nice and clean on the inside and underneath but because this was so huge it took forever I got there in the end and it was finally time to apply the veneer I didn't actually realize I was cutting through both sheets of veneer cuz I forgot that I bought two but it's okay cuz it was actually the same length as what I was going to need for the drawers so that's fine I use some tape to make sure I didn't make a mess before I applied the contact cement this was actually my first time using this one and it has gel consistency and what's good about this one is that when it's dry and you're about to put the venue on before you actually press it down you can move it around a little bit it doesn't stick to the other side right away so this just allows you you know to make mistakes and it's beginner friendly as you can see I'm wearing a mask and you absolutely have to wear it because it stinks like death it's just so terrible and even with the mask on I was able to smell it a little bit so make sure you do it in a well ventilated area one eternity later with contact cement you only need to wait 5 10 minutes until it's dry to the touch before you can actually apply the veneer and the reason I'm using those pieces of wood is so it doesn't stick to the bottom until I'm happy with the placement so what I'm doing now I'm basically removing the middle pieces and I'm pressing it down so it sticks in the middle and it does doesn't move and I'm just going to work my way out towards the edges you can buy special rollers that you can apply the venure with but this is just a tool that I made myself and the contact area allows you to apply more pressure with this tool than a roller so it's actually better when the venue was in place and I knew it was not going to go anywhere I applied pressure throughout the entire surface and I made sure that I didn't miss anything when I was happy with the veneer I used my router with a trim bit and I trimmed all the edges and then I sanded them [Music] smooth when you're applying vene you should use white Spirit or water and strong bright light to check for any bubbles or scratches before you actually apply stain or finish or whatever you're doing with it when I was done with the top I cut many more pieces for the sides the drawers and I made my own Edge bending rather than buying because it was quite expensive and I had a lot of veneer anyway applying contact cement is not difficult but it does take a while and you want to make sure that you don't make a mess otherwise you'll have a lot of cleaning up to do I know that some people find working with veneer quite intimidating but as you can see it's not and if you think about it you plan it and you use the tools that you're comfortable with it's actually pretty simple you can use regular wood glue just wait for it to dry and then use an iron to reactivate it and instead of using a router you can just use a scalpel or a sharp knife and as you can see I'm using a scalpel right here and it works you can just sand it a little bit afterwards and it's fine you don't need to use power tools if you're not comfortable with it as I just mentioned before I made my own Edge bending and this is pretty simple you don't need to cut it to the exact size because you can always trim it or you can just sand the edges and the reason I'm using tape on the front of those pieces is so none of the contact cement gets on it and I won't have to worry about cleaning it this is just to show you how huge this was and every time I wanted to work on one of the pieces I had to move the other ones around and it was like the game of thetes the front of the drawers needed replaying because the venure was just gone in some places and even the substrate was missing on few of them so I didn't have hand electric planer and I had to use this one so it was a bit sketchy but it [Music] worked I took most of the vineyard off with the planer and I finished finished it off with a sander and then I used wood filler to fill in the holes from the previous Hardware as I mentioned some of the substrate on some of the drawers was missing so I had to make small repairs just to make sure there was something for the veneer to adhere to 2,000 years later I actually found this on one of the drawers just in case you're curious who made this and after all that sanding which took absolutely forever I was able to apply venue to the drawer front I cleaned all the drawers on the outside and everywhere else other than inside and I'm going to do this later off camera the process is exactly the same you apply the veneer you trim it you send it and was able to finish all the drawers at this point you're pretty much venir Pro so you know exactly what I'm going to do so I don't need to explain it but I do want to say a huge thank you to all of you beautiful people for supporting the channel for buying snacks for the cats using my Amazon Wish List hitting the super thanks button or buying me coffees via buy me a coffee it really makes a huge difference and I'm not just saying that I really mean it and I wouldn't be able to do what I do if it wasn't for you guys so thank you and huge thank you to the channel members you guys are awesome I can't even assemble this in my shop cuz there's not enough space if I put it like this I won't be able to put the drawers in if I turn it this way I won't be able to access it from the side so I have to go outside but there's a high chance it's going to rain today and this is just heavy and really difficult to move by my myself so that's going to be tricky like I said this was really heavy if it starts raining right now I'm screwed I did some final sanding with 180 grade sandpaper and I use my gazebo just in case it was going to rain so from this point on I had to finish everything outside and it's been raining for like a month in England so that's not great for applying finishes and stains I was going to apply a line of gilding waxs in the middle and the cut inspector came to approve it I get an okay from the inspector and I apply gilding waxs and as you can see this line was basically asking for something like that and I thought it was cool I really can't make up my mind I'm just testing some stains so this is jacoban dark mahogan this is black this is plum mahogan and this is Walnut and definitely not black but I think I can like the rest of them so I think I would be happy with any of these four colors I really don't know well I went with PL mahogani and I know that at least one of you is going to hate it Linda but I going to keep this for myself and I really like this color so the way I'm applying this stain I've done it on small o projects and it worked really well but because this was so huge and just wasn't perfect so it was a bit blotchy but I actually did another coat of stain which I diluted with alcohol to even it out and make it pretty so everything worked out just fine I think this is going to be a very controversial decision I'm I haven't done the top coat yet obviously but I put the drawers in and because the veneer is different CU you know it came from two different sheets of veneer I don't want to stain the drawers I kind of like them and because I'm going to keep this I think I'm not going to stain the yours might be crazy but I like it so this is me applying this stain that was diluted and it really helped to even out the color and make everything look nice and working on such a large surface I probably could have used something like pre-stained conditioner or something like that to make sure it was a bit easier to apply the stain but it was okay I let the staying dry overnight I applied my logo and when I came back I attached the size to the Gaze ball so I could actually apply the finish and not worry too much about the rain and wind and everything else because I didn't stay in the drawers I decided to use two different oils and for the stained Parts I used osmo mainly because if I used OES it would have cost me a fortune there are a few small imperfections that I'm going to fix later but I want to apply the Finish First and wait for it to dry so I know exactly the color that I need I was quite happy with how it was looking I left it to dry and I applied all these dark to the front of the drawers the veneer that I applied came from two different sheets of veneer so it was two different tones so I basically used it in a way to make it look more even or spaced out so it's one light one dark and you know you can see what it is and I actually quite liked it the project is nearly finished and what a journey this has been if you guys have enjoyed this video you can smash the super thanks button or buy me a coffee via buy me coffee I'll love you forever and enjoy the final results see you in the next video [Music]

Channel: Flippingdrawers

Views: 143,591

Keywords: furniture

Id: bRxYiRvPqCE

Length: 25min 14sec (1514 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 19 2023