Spice Cabinet from 1665! Restoration and repair of this old antique brought back to life

[Music] welcome to the cotak workshop today's video is quite an exciting restoration of really quite an interesting piece that's been brought in uh it is this Oak spice rack which has got some internal damage but it also has a handwritten note on the inside uh which gives us some idea of the date and uh we've been asked to fix it put it back together again and um bring it back to life I hope you enjoy okay let's uh think about this 1665 we've got the note we've got the wording we need to apply some logic to figure out the number of generation and does it fit could this really be from the 17th century so let's follow this logic this cabinet was given to me by my mother when 16 years old 1865 let's start with a and call me Anne If Anne was 16 in 1865 she was born in 1849 if she lived her three score and 10 to 70 then she may have lived to 1919 it being given to her when 12 years old 1834 let's call her mother B for Betty Betty was born in 1822 it being her mother great grandma assume her is Betty's mother her mother is C Kathy her mother's mother is d Diana her mother's grandmother is e Ethel her mother's great grandm is f Fiona so Betty was born in 1822 and assuming the same 27 years old for each mother Kathy was born 1795 Diana 1768 Ethel 1741 Fiona 1714 it doesn't quite add up to 1665 we'd need another generation or two but it's certainly into the late 18th the early 18th century and may have had more history before that also done some research uh online looking at images uh searching for 17th century spice boxes to see if we can find something similar and actually some of these results are are pretty good which uh not just one or two but several so that's really helping us uh age the piece what I'm not sure about certainly the outside looks uh to be of that age but some of the internals are perhaps uh of a different age or have been repaired over the over the intervening uh several hundred years so I'm strongly of the opinion that this is from the 17th century uh which means the way that we approach the restoration and the repair needs to be particularly considered and sensitive so I hope what you see through the film uh reflects that I've gone into more detail um because I want to show you uh some of the attention and respect that uh something of this age really deserves so there's some internal pieces are broken some tissue paper so this is where the lovely note is in here there's a key obviously the lock has been changed a number of times that's the the key for in there so there's clearly signs of glue across the top and there's been a stain where that shelf has gone which will help us this piece here I think is this piece no not that I think that uh is the divider for the small drawers this is different this is much finer work this has been done separately straighten that these have been added laterally you can see there's the screw coming through so that's a a late edition so this is a a later Edition and this is interesting here what's this RF that be our restore or one of the owners RP RF it's a clue just looking at some of the parts look at this somebody's had to go with a good old nail just smack that in there that'll do wow thing is when it's old enough it actually becomes part of the piece but uh yes also looking at this varnish that's been put on that's clearly been done at that time that's a more modern varnish lots of pondering lots of thinking what to do here but I think we're going to start up here and see if we can straighten this and clean up the outside a little bit so this has been repaired before you can see this golden colored glue and then there's a different colored glue along here so these have been stuck on several times and repaired unfortunately last time this didn't fit so because of that not being original I do want to take this off and then clean this out I don't want to take all four off if it's a heat releasing glue that would be great if it's something more modern then I'm just going to have to be incredibly careful but taking this off is the next step okay I've got a heat gun and a knife I'm not pointing the heat gun at the piece I'm pointing the heat gun at at the knife okay so what that tells me is that it is a heat relasing glue so I think I'm going to be able to get it off there it is okay so this has the distinctive smell of a hide glue so we need to respect that um but I'm going to scrape away clean away the older glue I don't think it is original because as I say it was leaking out but clearly done at the time that the other repairs were done so I'm just going to take away that remaining hard glue ah very distinctive smell I have two types of hide glue I've got old brown and some tight born genuine hide glue both are reversible uh this needs a heat bath to warm it up to temperature is very good but for this tiny little repair here that we hopefully don't need to reverse I'm going to use this [Music] doesn't need a lot of clamping pressure but I just got a leather wad in there and just slightly at an angle and then just going clean up any squeeze out next thing I'm going to do is give it a good clean there's some sort of Wax residue on here it's not original um it's been varnished so I'm going to try and take the top layer to clean it which you've seen me do before uh and then I'm going to use bit of gentle wax remover but not affect the patina and then I'm going to use some uh Murphy wood cleaner to clean it up [Music] [Music] just about every piece that I get to at this stage I find this Flex of white paint um obviously people doing a bit of Home Decorating next to the heirloom and a bit of paint Flex on it it's amazing it's always white as well um if you are going to do some painting at home next to something that's as old as this cover it up so this is Murphy wood cleaner uh just a small bit diluted in some warm water it really does smell lovely it's very gentle but um we do need to clean off that wax remover I don't want to affect the patina but there is paint residue and a few other things that need to come off yeah you can see already that color [Music] the more I look at this unit the more repairs and alterations I can see the lock itself has had dozens and dozens and dozens and there's all sorts of extra holes and extra bits which kind of suggest that it is quite old if you think maybe every 20 years or something somebody does something like I'm doing then yeah it's probably had a lot like this this little hole in here I mean what's that forly had a plan we'll get it cleaned up so it's looking a lot cleaner uh that's the sort of stuff that's coming off uh a lot of tobacco smoke uh if it's been a spice rack then kitchen fat and smells um but just trying to clean it without uh going back you can still see these FX of paint so that shows you just how gentle it has been I still am very much on the surface and um we'll get those cleaned up as well probably want to do a little bit in here cuz it is looking a bit muddy um but coming up beautifully so this is drying after it's clean up you can just see the amount of work that's been done over time there different holes and at the back there's multiple holes and looks like this has been put down like you would do with a modern safe uh there are multiple marks and what's this circle in here just so interesting on the here you can see there's been previous hinges and then these are a replacement something else has gone in there there's been multiple places for locks to go in it's a mystery but what we can say is it's a beautiful piece it's going to look really nice when it's all cleaned up it's not going to look that orange but uh that's just a trick of the camera it's actually a lot darker as I look at it here so I've noticed that there's a gap in here and this lock piece is loose here but it's not loose at that end so if I loosened it off and pushed it all the way down there'd be it would be lower here and if I took that off then there's going to be a bigger Gap here which we don't want so it does need to be over this way if I loosened all of these Joints off and pushed it this way there would be a gap down here possibly and I really don't want to take all of this apart so left with the choices of glue it and accept that there's a gap push it back and accept that there's a gap here or could I put something in here now wood fillers a no no uh that would look terrible but perhaps if I have a piece of Oak with a similar sort of grain perhaps I could put a strip down so what I'm going to do is without gluing it or making it permanent have a go at making a sliver and see what it looks like so something like this and clamped in and made flush then obviously we have to make it hundreds of years old as well for look at this this here and in here is wood filler so somebody in the not too distant past has gone in to repair those okay now we come to the insides while that's drying um let's look at the front of this bigger drawer it's got a modernish finish on it maybe it's polyurethane but certainly it's a varnish it's got a more modern screwed in pull that uh goes all the way through I can feel it there and you can see that there used to be something else a different shape it's very basic box structure pinned together at the sides 1 2 3 1 two 3 and then a base nailed in question is do we leave the liner to look vintage do we keep the pull do we keep this finish and just make it fit I'm tempted to keep the pulls because the owner will remember them and they've been in a long time I'm tempted to tidy this gloss up a bit just to make it more in keeping with how the front's going to be the lining I'm not sure we'll have to ponder that when I look at all the drawers together uh I see this one here is offset and underneath is the broken end of some other pull that you can see whoever restored it wasn't able to get that out so they've just offset the pull this one here there's some filler goes all the way through so that's obviously a hole that's been filled and the Finish is different or patchy on different ones so I think what we going to do is take this Sheen off but keep the pulls and see what comes up so I'm just taking off this uh horrible polar urethane um but try not to affect the older parts okay these have been for uh quite a significant wash I've taken the lining out because it was torn and they've had a good clean and they're going to come up really nicely just need to get the last bits out yes looking a lot nicer okay I'm going to start repairing these bits so I think this goes with this but uh take the tape off glue it up I've also taken that uh broken B screw out and triy to make as little as damage as possible so we can put it back over the top okay these two pieces need to join for the side that goes in here I'm going to use a shooting board with a nice sharp blade to square them off glue those together like that and that'll be a really nice joint so yes it's a more modern glue but that's because this is a brake and not something that's likely to need to be reversed we want it to be nice and strong it's not load bearing but still let's do a good job here now this nail somebody's put in but it's a a monster and it's causing it to split and it's going to make setting it I wouldn't normally take it out but because it's on the side of a drawer I think that's got to come out that looks like a carpet tack wow what about this wax plug so it is piece of wax that's been filled in all the way through leave it but there's some damaged wood underneath so I think we're going to drill that out and then using a similar piece of Oak create a plug [Music] d so I'm just alining the grain up this has been glued before look at that that's glued that's been put in this TR but not been cleaned up so we need to take that off what is that wow it's a a nail another nail space but wow that is a modern that's a modern nail w this has had so many repairs at so many different times I wasn't expecting that so after we've cleaned it all we feed it so this was our plug just needs to be tidied up a little bit and we'll stay in that as well so I'm going to have to build this sort of House of Cards in reverse because each of these has been sort of built like a doll's house um it's just glued with some pins so I'm going to start at the top and work my way down and then make the drawers fit okay I'm now gluing in the side frame let me tell you why this is a terrible design because the drawers fit in exactly into the alcoves so there is no room um below or above to fit any kind of glue stop when the drawer goes in it completely fills that rectangular space that rectangular space so there's nowhere that you could put a support to hold these up unless you cut out something along the edge of here because the sides will want to move out the way that removes the support so I'm gluing it at the moment and I'm trying to clamp the sides in to actually make contact with the glue but most of it is going to be held by this top piece and effect ly it's hanging like a hanging hanging garden um I can see why when it was made it had to be strengthened so somebody's had to bang a nail in through here but it hasn't quite worked but I don't see the the hole on the other side so maybe it's come from some other internals and then been made to fit however it's not going to be massively loadbearing and we have got some decent glue on so let's see I've just remembered something about hide glue you can actually use it to build in gaps which you can't do with modern wood glue so if I warm some of this up get it nice and flowing I should be able to fill in some of those cracks or the gaps and this will actually form a bit of a bridge so what I'm doing is warming it up in a a water bath yeah come and see what do we think okay so this is coming along nicely I've now got the drawers fitted and working the pools still aren't on what I'm going to do now is give these a final bit of uh dark oak stain just to sort of match it up a little bit and feed the wood rather than trying to do any color changing um and then I'm going to put some hard wax on and then I'm going to line the insides possibly put something in here and we'll be good so this is a oilbased wood dye uh it's good stuff so this is not painting it it's feeding the wood and then wiping it off I want to get into all the corners the joints so stop it cracking bring out the lovely color of the oak so this wood is just so this up it's really drinking it in which is good uh it's conditioning the wood as well as making the color pop so I haven't taken off the sort of age and patina underneath but just giving it a new leas of life making it look less tired I'm now going to apply a hard wax oil I've got osmo uh it's clear satin and it has uh natural oils I've used it a lot before um and it's really excellent for this sort of application so I'm going to take some of this out to count it out and give this a nice nourishing coat so same sort of thing fairly generous into all the nooks and crannies and then wipe it all off you don't want any free surface wax I just feed it into everywhere first front back bottom everything and then really importantly to wipe it all off so you get just a very thin layer and that will dry satin so there's no surface oil left at all and take it all off then you can take the wet rag and wipe the next ones it's really a fine fine coat osmo hard wax oil is quite expensive but I've hardly used any in uh doing the drawers here and I've probably poured out too much anyway to do the rest of this but uh it really does come out well and then wipe it off so it's not painting it's feeding feeding it into into the grain where it's visible and wiping off the excess so you're looking raking light beautiful luster finish light touch on the inside so we absolutely don't want any drips or runs so we're just wiping off any excess of the hard wax oil so it's a very fine coating okay the hard wax oil has now dried and I'm going to now put on uh some beeswax polish uh this is gilboys and um there is a discount available if you'd like to buy some it's excellent stuff really recommend it we're going to put it on with some four knot uh wire wool uh and a little brush and then we'll leave it and take it off and and uh then we'll be able to put the pools back on and get this back together just let it uh settle for about 20 minutes and then we'll take it off I was thinking about the liners for these for this spice rack what would look great as a liner on the inside how about fiery red right here's the problem tough look h ah that explains one two three four that there that there so these PS were never going to work h so I was all ready for the big reveal and it was all going to be ready to go but unfortunately these just are the wrong things to have in it can close if you force it but you'd have to lock it closed and it has obviously had that but now I'm afraid they're going to have to be changed because what I could do is drill out gaps in here so I'd be drilling into um 17th century wood I don't want to do that I could take a bit off the back so the drawers go further back but then you'd have this lip every time you opened it now I think the right thing to do is to change these pools so I've ordered these which are closer to what would have been in before and I'm just hoping that they flush further enough back so let's see what that looks like there we have it a fully restored 17th century Spice Box lined in red felt and green with the writing preserved [Music] [Music] power power power

Channel: The Cottack Workshop

Views: 66,712

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Id: qkJy_Mr3IRY

Length: 41min 19sec (2479 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 15 2024