Posted in Furniture, tagged chair, Danish oil, restore, sanding, upholstery on 22/07/2016| 4 Comments »
It’s taken me 5 years to get around to restoring this chair. It’s the third of four pieces of furniture I bought in Tarrington, near Hamilton, in June 2011. (The others are a wooden chest , a kitchen chair and a three-legged side table that’s still on my to-do list.)
The chair was described by the shop owner as being oak. I could tell it wasn’t but it was solid and I liked the proportions and the carving on the backrest, though not so much the upholstery job.
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Posted in Furniture, tagged angle grinder, carriage bolt, Danish oil, orbital sander, railway sleeper, table saw, vertical drill press on 03/07/2016| 4 Comments »
On paper this was a basic job: clean up two old blocks of wood, bolt them together and, hey, we’ve got a compact timber side table or stool. In reality, it was an incredibly complicated and time-consuming project that tested our power tool skills and our patience.
Posted in Other interesting things, tagged Danish oil, lamp, lamp base, light fitting, sanding, sandpaper, vertical drill press on 27/12/2014| 2 Comments »
My friend Moira and I have just made ourselves a couple of lamps. We love the results but we don’t think it’s the start of a whole new craft career.
… in just a few complicated steps.
Posted in Furniture, tagged beeswax, Danish oil, orbital sander, paint stripping, restore, sanding on 22/06/2014| 4 Comments »
The cupboard I bought at Mt Buffalo last month is now restored. It took quite a bit of effort for a piece of furniture that is – honestly – not the most brilliant example of cabinetmaking.
It’s hard to imagine what this cupboard would have looked like when it was originally built. There are tell-tale signs that it wasn’t ever intended to be a fine woodworking piece. The cabinet top has a narrow strip of joined wood running across the back edge, as though someone ran out of the right timber, and the whole top has been nailed straight onto the carcass. There are odd gaps and bad joins around the base of the cabinet and the interior varnish has been applied sloppily.
At some stage at least one of the shelves must have been refitted. And the door looks like it got opened back too far one day and it split – it was repaired with glue and nails. Still, the cupboard is part of the Mt Buffalo Chalet story and that makes me happy.
Posted in Furniture, tagged Danish oil, metho, methylene chloride, paint scrapers, paint stripper, paint stripping, restore, rimu, steelwool, stool on 27/09/2013| 8 Comments »
OK, so it’s another story about paint stripping. If you can’t be bothered reading it, at least enjoy the slideshow at the end.
I seem to have picked the simplest job ever for demonstrating how to strip paint off furniture. This old stool had just 1 coat of red paint. That’s it. Not even an undercoat.
I bought it from Bay Country Antiques in Waipawa, New Zealand (and got it home in my suitcase). The wood is probably rimu (Dacrydium cupressinum), according to the guy in the shop. Don’t ask me, I only know kauri.
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Posted in Furniture, tagged beeswax, bench seat, Danish oil, Inverloch, orbital sander, restore, sandpaper, second-hand on 09/03/2013| Leave a Comment »
It’s been a nice change working on a piece of furniture that didn’t need pulling apart and rebuilding. The bench seat I bought in Inverloch just needed sanding, oiling and waxing. Although, really, a lot of sanding, followed by a sore neck and sore shoulders.
The seat was superficially weathered but it was really sturdy. It had come from a deceased estate down Inverloch way and, given that there were a number of homemade pieces among the contents, the owner must have been into making furniture out of second-hand timbers.
The timber’s definitely blackwood (Acacia melanoxylon) – the colour and the grain are wonderful. (Here’s some info on blackwood on the Victorian Department of Primary Industries website.)
Then …
… and now
Third bit from the right 