Uh-Oh! - Thomas Johnson Antique Furniture Restoration

i'm tom johnson thomas johnson antique furniture restoration in gorham maine this is a nice center table by that i mean it's used in the center of a hall or the center of a foyer it's a nice table it's a tilt top table it's got figured walnut veneer top with uh inlay vases and leaves and stuff it's got a nice base five columns it's supported on these nice carved legs at first i thought maybe these feet were cut off but they're but they're all carved nicely the same kind of carving so i've not seen anything like that before but anyway it's got a loose molding on the top but more importantly the entire base is loose we've got some re-blueing to do first thing we're going to do is take the top off i really don't understand what's going on here these are too loose uh there's too much movement it doesn't seem like there could be a dowel or a tenon or anything this part is really loose and i think there must be bolts going through here you see there's a hollow panel here i need to take this panel out and i bet i'll find a nut or the head of a screw or something in there so note the modern wire nails ah there it is that's the top of a bolt uh i think we'll find the nut on the other end hmm [Laughter] hello you know these aren't even supposed to be glued i kind of thought that they were too loose they were spinning around too easily you know i'm going to mark these even though i believe they're interchangeable [Applause] so just one of these legs is loose this one through dovetails on these pedestal tables are really cool but they all suffer from the same problem right there it creates a weak place here this table's not bad it's only broken in one place [Music] just a skosh now i noticed this little chip here along the way i got to glue that back so now we can uh turn our attention to this loose molding on the top foreign [Music] uh up up okay we'll let that dry overnight all right i think i'm going to start with the top here good it seems uh nice and level i just need to take a damp cloth and get this glue off of here first i'll plug in my knives because i'm going to use i'm going to melt wax into the cracks that looks like it could be a good color but i don't know if you can see but it's it's on the reddish side i think i'll stick with this one that's browner i'll give it a try anyway now so okay now we can turn our attention back to the base that little veneer chip i can see that getting all four of these in is going to be fun okay that wasn't as bad as i thought it was going to be assuming that it's going to tighten up i'd love to get a lock washer in there this could work well the question is uh is there enough room for it i think i'll tighten it up and just sort of see what it looks like i noticed when i took it off that the domed side was down like that and of course that fit the the concave washer there so this is tightening up really well so i had two of these columns have a little bit of movement i don't know that that matters at least everything looks nice and straight so i'll uh crank it down some more everything looks nice and straight this plate was just loose when it came in here but it's got nail holes in it i'll nail it back down oh i noticed right away that my disk on the bottom here is not centered this time i'll clamp it into position before i nail it [Music] so [Music] so now i'll look it over for any uh touch-ups i know i have one right here there's still a crushed corner here and i have some glue here and i'll look it over for anything else i'll put a piece of wet rag on there see if i can't bring it up i'll leave it there for a while and a wet rag to get this glue off of here so while i'm waiting to see if that little dent swells up a bit i'm going to start polishing the top it just occurred to me i'm going to tape off half this top and polish this hat and then hopefully i can get a shot of the difference it can be difficult to get that on video but i'm going to try so i'm just trying to i make this as even as possible i've got the steel wool gliding across the top and i'm looking for any streaks or anything that just trying to very very lightly even it out all right gonna let it dry for 20 or 30 minutes gilboys recommends the soft open weave cloth in fact they sell this and everything i'm doing today is exactly to the directions that they show on their website all right let's see how it can help i think you can see right away there's a difference so this side doesn't look bad until you compare it to this side as more sheen of course a really nice sheen and it also but mostly what you see is a lot more clarity i mean this table didn't look bad when it came in here but this is definitely better so now i'll do this side okay now we can get back to this uh gouge the water i put on it for so long really didn't do much but it's always worth a try i'm gonna fill it with epoxy putty that way i won't have to sand all right this has dried for a few hours i'm just going to touch it real lightly with some 220 stain it and then seal it with shellac so my touch-up's a little on the dark side and then i have a light spot right there i'm going to go over the whole thing with a scotch brite pad lightly touch up the light spot with a marker and then go over the whole front of this foot with my rag with some stain on it so yesterday evening off camera i sprayed a couple more coats of shellac on it with the aerosol now i'm going to go over it very very lightly with this scotch brite pad and then i'm going to begin waxing the entire pedestal i've let the wax dry and now i'm just going to buff it out with a soft cloth so i think i can install the top here without having to turn it over i'm going to give it a try huh actually works the way it's supposed to so there we have it a very nice center table uh it really is not a big transformation here it looked good when it came in thank goodness it still looks good now but i re-glued the edge moldings but most importantly uh re-glued the base this thing was making a lot of noise when you moved it or even touched it and now it's nice and quiet squeak a lot when you'd open it not that it ever got open i think it looks pretty good you

Channel: Thomas Johnson Antique Furniture Restoration

Views: 94,156

Rating: 4.970562 out of 5

Keywords: Thomas, Johnson, Antique, Furniture, Restoration, Gorham, Maine, Southern, ME, Greater, Portland, Boston, MA, Newton, Mass

Id: LPruuoVEXo4

Length: 25min 56sec (1556 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 03 2021