Restoring Midcentury Modern Hans Wegner Teak Chairs - Thomas Johnson Antique Furniture Restoration

I'm Tom Johnson Thomas Johnson antique furniture restoration and gourmet this is a really nice set of hogs Bergner Model W two chairs the customer has six of them we only have four here in a shop now her parents bought these in the early 1950s they're in a hundred percent original condition they need to be reglued which is why they're here I'll do that I'm also going to restore the finish somewhat with some oil and wax and also attempt to restore these leather seats we want to save these seats but they don't come off of here the seat frame appears to be structural I can I can see definitely a tenant in here from this piece into here a little bit unsure what's going on but I think what I'll do I'm going to start by loosening the cambric in and the leather and then see what I've got here boy I was so intent on seeing if I can get this apart I didn't mark anything yet so uh now it's time to do that yeah I thought I felt some looseness there this is starting to come apart so this back assembly doesn't seem to have any movement in it I see maybe a little movement here in the crush trail I might just give it a few sharp whacks to see if it'll loosen up a little bit sometimes on the chairs much older than this they seem tight but one or two sharp kind of whacks can shock the joint loose I'm gonna do this here just to see I'm not gonna try too hard now this seems really solid so I think I'm good I'm gonna now clean all these glue joints lieutenants and the voices and glue the chair back together [Applause] [Music] okay these are dried over tonight next step is to restate bolt the leather covering and actually before I staple the material this piece of plywood on the bottom needs to be okay so now I'm gonna wash the chair I'm gonna give it a real gentle wash I'm gonna use some oil soap and then a great scrubbing pad now with I mixed up some fresh oil soap and I'm going to clean the seats I don't want to get them receipt real life so I'm just squeezing this out all right now I'm going to let this dry for a few hours and then I'll tackle the seat so this is dried I'm going to take some black dye stain and put it on a rag and Pat it over these areas where there's raw leather show okay this is a fast-drying stain like 45 minutes but I'm going to let this dry for a few hours okay I think the stain is dried and now I'm going to take a paper towel and some alcohol and just Pat off any excess all right I've let this dry overnight I don't think I needed to let it dry overnight but it did take a clean paper towel and just wipe this I want to know if there's any stain or anything left on here but that looks nice and clean and so now I'm gonna use this leather conditioner on it you know I showed these to an upholsterer he told me that this leather is actually painted which seems kind of strange I'm not sure though how much good the conditioner will do one painted surface but I think it'll help at the very most I'm gonna work at them well into all these cracks and you know try to get some why we'll get some conditioner into that I'm really surprised that the rag with the conditioners picking up this block I don't know if it's especially after I went over it with alcohol and let it dry overnight and a dry rag I'm not too concerned about it it could be black from them black paint that's on here but the conditioner looks good the directions say to let dry for a few minutes I'll let it dry longer than that an hour or something and then we'll start on the wood okay the first thing I'm going to do now as far as the wood is concerned is I'm going to sand it with some just some 220 paper and really lightly just sort of going over it feels really smooth but this will make it a little smoother looking if there's anything else that I need to do thank so now I'm going to use my tongue well varnish no jarred here last time we used it and I'm going to apply it with a 4-0 steel wool and then patio all right now I've gone over the whole chair I'm gonna make my rag into a pad and just kind of had this off I don't want to wipe it all the way off but I'm gonna pass this coat looks good I'm just gonna let it dry overnight and tomorrow decide if it needs another coat or not it it may or may not I'll find out tomorrow well it feels great but the crest rails a little dull actually parts of it have a nice Sheen other parts it's really soaked in I definitely need to Pat on another coat the endgrain on the top of his legs is really soaking it in so I'm actually gonna brush a little bit that was just helping a lot I'll let that coat dry overnight these have soaked it up so much and I've missed a few spots here and there with the rag that I'm gonna brush on this coat and then maybe tomorrow rub it down just with steel wax to see what it looks like tomorrow okay I've left these chairs drive for actually three days with this coat went down really well they certainly have enough finished on them now in fact they're they're too shiny looking it makes it look like there's a thick finish on it but what I've got to do is cut down the Machine and what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna try this sanding lightly with 320 gold paper and then rubbing it down with a balloon pack so what I'm doing is rubbing it with this maroon pad until it looks nice and even till most of the shininess and the grain is going not all of it because it's open grain this is good and then we'll take this shop towel and just buff it out well it certainly feels smooth I'm gonna take my beeswax polish rag and just go over just this crust rail I'm gonna see what it looks like when it's waxed alright now I'll use a paper towel well I think that looks good I think it looks just the way we want it to look well this looks so good I'm just going to precede that with the rest of the chair all right so I'll let this dry this beeswax Polish I'll let this dry forever you know half hour or so and then I'll buff this out so there we have it these are Hans Wagner model W two chairs these are four of a set of six these chairs were purchased in the mid 50s by the owners parents they were came in in a hundred percent original condition but they desperately needed to be reglued and so the only thing that's new on them now we have new glue and a new coat of oil I think they were pretty good you

Channel: Thomas Johnson Antique Furniture Restoration

Views: 90,362

Rating: 4.9392543 out of 5

Keywords: Thomas, Johnson, Antique, Furniture, Restoration, Gorham, Maine, Southern, ME, Greater, Portland, Boston, MA, Newton, Mass, Hans Wegner, W2 chair, W2 chairs, Wegner chair, chair, Hans Wegner w2, Wegner W2, Hans Wegner w2 chair, Wegner w2 chair, Danish Modern, Modern, Modernist, Modern furniture, Modernist Furniture, Modernist chair, modern chair, MCM chair, MCM restoration

Id: K6vBPeF4xBY

Length: 16min 10sec (970 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 29 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/jwell619]

Agreed. Dude has seen more then I ever will. Just going to say it, when he was taking those chairs apart and using a hammer with no medium to protect the wood from a direct hit... damn near had a heart attack.

[u/mtndewboy420]

this was really nice to watch. thanks.