buahahahahah
I think I bought myself some junk - or a whole heap of trouble!
For those who yet to hear or know - from time to time I buy a dilapidated old cranky piece of furniture and give it some loving TLC - then try - and try is the operative word here - try and on-sell it for a little bit of profit!!
Just enough $$$ to be able to buy the next project!
W E L L
This particular piece was - urm - ancient!! Serious consideration was given to just turn it into firewood. Then a little voice in my head told me not to be afraid of new challenges!!!- Sighs
Actually I should say - this came from a house that was build in 1915-ish!! I am sure it is not THAT old, probably close to it though!! So if you are close to a hundred years old and still walk upright minus a few scraps and bruises - Well done you!!!
How do I know this is an ancient piece - well - the glue originally used is an old horse-glue type - strong and clear! They stopped using that in 1950's I think!! Awful stuff to work with - yet extremely strong.
This is how it came - split and uneven and opened up. I had a hell of a job re-aligning - this. . . . let alone removing it in one piece without breaking anything!!
I should say that one major decision made right at the start, was to re-cycle as much of the original material as possible. It is made mainly from Oak - and has some Rimu for structural support.
Everything was wrong with this unit - requiring a deep dive into the bone structures, some Osteoporosis treatments. Several broken bones needed to be - well - re-broken (kind way of saying that I ripped them apart), then re-aligned and put into plaster. The top of the dresser was removed and while bowed and crooked was re-glued with the help of eight dowels - to keep it aligned. At this point a consultation took place - for if the wood-doctor failed right here to his magic - - - then there was no point in carrying on! As luck would have it - the panels held together and stayed reasonably true - or flat!
The runners of the drawers had been used so extensively - so much so that in one particular case has completely worn away - it was - literally - running on thin air!!!
The drawer-stops had been worn away as well and no longer doing their job (of stopping the drawers of being pushed to deep into the cabinet!) , so were gently pried away and been replaced with some new stops!!
All drawers had a piece of timber fitted on their respective sides - so that was something solid for them to slide along. All running guides had been taken off - and being Rimu - simply turned upside down and then re-attached in their respective places. (gotta say - I must have done a sterling job - those drawers are now so smoothly going in and out - it would be easy to drop them if not careful enough)
I spent some considerable time to find one of the washers that was missing from the tear-drop handle. Alas - it is so ancient that not even Musgroves (our major recycler hardware/timber specialist) had one - at least - simply none to be found.
Consideration was given to replace all of them with a new modern set - alas at $7 and more - that will be left to the new (hopefully) owner to be done if so wished!! I did find a sort of similar thing - that with a bit of filing and coaxing was able to be fitted! In similar vain - it sits on the original steel rollers - slightly bent and oxidized (dang - were they copper originally???) but perfectly function-able. They can easily be pulled out and the unit would just sit on a furniture glide of sorts!
The backing timber was an old piece of crappy 2ply-wood that was getting frayed and came apart at the seams - so I hunted for some suitable timber re-placement!! Luckily - I have not needed to buy some (starting at $50) and recycled an older sheet I had stashed away for another project!
The last job was to bring it to a tanning saloon for a skin graft and new tan! At some point someone decided to stub out some cigarettes - leaving a 3mm deep black hole - and some horrible round black oil stain on the top! LOTS of sanding!!! The very last act was to add a new tan - Linseed Oil!!
I think it came up nice. Best of all - the aimed for "distressed ' or should that be "rustic" look was achieved or maintained! Sure it is not 100 % perfect - (in fact it was never built 'square' to start with), has some scraps and dings and is - well - not 'factory-new'. Yet it is rock solid and looks good.
Well -I lost count after 10 hours of work - so will not get paid for my efforts "by the hour", hopefully more then what I bought it for!!
Oldstyle Dovetails - you do not see that very often these days!! - Nice!!
It had one on the left side fitted - but the right hand side piece was missing - obviously knocked off a looong time back - so luckily for me I had some Oak T&G plank left over from a previous job - so was able to re-cycle and fit a matching piece!!
Now for me turning into a sales person . . .
Jack of all trades I have to be . . . .
Have fun!
