I wanted to submit something for your Viewer Project portion of the blog. It’s a trunk that I made for a former player of mine that is getting married on Friday. She’s a great kid and did absolutely everything I asked of her the three years I had the pleasure of coaching her. The trunk was made from scrap I had around my shop – poplar, alder, maple, maple ply for the top and mdf for the panels. The corners were mitered using my ts55 and are reinforced with Dominos. The finish is some exterior latex I had left over from a plantation shutter job I did this summer. I put on two coats of primer and then two top coats. I don’t think I’ll use paint next time since it didn’t come out as smooth as I would’ve liked. If I do another one of these I’ll probably end up using a tinted lacquer. After it was painted I beat the heck out of it with some old keys and took some chunks out with a chisel. Once that was done I applied Mohawk’s Van Dyke Brown Glazing Stain. I followed that up with two coats of USL.

I know that the hinges don’t match the feel of the piece but I wanted to use them. They are the new ones from Rockler that allow the lid to stay in a fixed position. The little tray in the middle was to fix a bow in the front panel. I had to pull it back in so that the lid would shut. Not what I wanted to do but it did the job. Thanks for your time.

“I am currently repairing an old family washstand for a friend of mine and I would appreciate your input on what kind of finish to put on it that would not diminish it’s value or character. My favorite finish is wipe-on poly, but I don’t know if that would be the correct finish or not on such a cherished piece. Thanks”.

And Adam’s response:
You touched on two very important things that I will point out. First, is value. Unless your friend’s washstand bears the name Sheraton, Chippendale, or has at least a 250 year history, there won’t be much monetary value to it. Since it is a family piece there is a great amount of emotional value. I’m guessing that’s what led to the idea of restoring it in the first place; preserving memories. Second, is character. The perceived character of a piece does come from age, construction, finish…but if it needs attention and is better served by being repaired and refinished, then your restoration of the piece will bring its own character to it. Thereby, adding your touch to your friend’s family history and heritage of the piece.

Historically we see shellac, primitive varnish, and early forms of lacquer showing up on washstands from the 16th century all the way into the early 20th century. I’m guessing that your friend’s washstand is anywhere between 75 and 150 years old since these are the most commonly found age ranges of washstands. So it more than likely had orange shellac or a simple varnish as an original finish. Wipe on poly is easy to use, but it won’t quite duplicate the “character” you get form shellac as it ages. So, my choice would be to use either an orange or super blonde shellac. Super blonde simply because you can tint it with any color you like to age the piece. I would mix a 1lb cut and then dilute that in half with denatured alcohol to produce a padding shellac. Put that in a plastic ketchup bottle, like the one’s at your favorite burger joint, and you can easily squeeze the shellac on to a rag and wipe it on in long strokes. This mixture dries quickly so you can apply many layers in a matter of hours. Also, if needed, you can alternate layers of shellac and color to reach a desired antique effect. I hope this helps and be sure to post some photos when you’re done.

Be sure to check out Adam’s website at AdamKingStudio.com and if you are a Twitter user, you can follow him at Twitter.com/AdamKingStudio.

Hey Marc, thought I’d take advantage of my Guild membership “red phone” for the first time. I’m building a wine cabinet out of Honduran mahogany, and would like the finish to mimic the antique mahogany pieces in the same room. I am testing out a bunch of different finishing layers right now, and was wondering if you have any special recipe you’ve used. I have a whole assortment of water-based dyes, stains, shellac, oil, pore filler, and even asphaltum at my disposal for this experiment, so give me your best shot. Thanks in advance.

Hey Rob. Oddly enough, every time I have tried a finish that’s in the ballpark of that sort of “classic mahogany” look, I have tried something different. And each time the results were acceptable. So I don’t really have a favorite. But some of the techniques I used involved toners and lacquers, and it doesn’t sound like you have those on hand so I will skip them for now.

I would start the process with a dye or stain that gets your color at least 90% there. A good mahogany gel stain would be my choice (like General Finishes). Test on scraps until you determine which product gives you the best color. As an alternative, you can play with different dye ratios and make your own water-based dye stain. Once you apply your color, seal it in with some dewaxed shellac. That will lock the color in and protect the color from the next step, which is pore-filling. I would use an oil-based pore filler that has some color added to it. Something in the dark dark brown/red arena. Use Transtint or even a mix of UTC pigments (if you have them on hand), to achieve the dark intense color you need. Its also a good idea to let a small sample of the pore filler dry so you can see what color it takes on. In general, I like to match the wood color and possibly go slightly darker. I don’t like bringing too much attention to the pores.

When you apply the pore-filler, do like you normally would for any other piece. Apply it across the grain and wipe off the excess, let it set for a couple minutes, then buff it out using burlap if you can find it. Get as much of the excess up as possible. Then let it sit over night. Come back with a very light 320 sanding to clean up any remaining filler that might still be on the surface (but be careful not to cut through the shellac).

Now you can seal in the filler using another good coat of shellac. By this time, the color should be pretty much where you want it to be. You can always add some dye to your shellac sealer coat to tone the color one way or the other.

At this point, some people will even take things a step further an use a mahogany glaze to further deepen to intensity of the color. But if you got the right amount of color in step 1, this won’t be necessary. So just throw down several coats of your favorite finish and you should be good to go. I suppose you could also skip the pore-filling step but then I would recommend going with a matte finish. Maybe its just me but I hate the way a gloss finish looks on un-filled open pore wood. Good luck!

“With all the “new” shops that we have seen, I thought some of you might be interested in a wood shop that was built by my father in the basement of our Long Island, New York home around 1962. I still remember, as a young boy, holding a star drill as my dad manually pounded holes in the concrete basement floor to set the footers for framing the shop walls. I don’t know if I was really “helping” but my dad let me think I was!”

“The first picture shows my dad’s Craftsman table saw in the center of the shop. The saw had a “big” 7″ blade and “gravity feed” dust collection. (Sawdust just dropped into a big drawer in the cabinet base he constructed for the saw.)”

“As you can see from Pic 2, every tool in the shop had a place and my dad could always tell if a tool was not placed back where it was supposed to be! The chisels consisted of a large array of different sized flat chisels and gouges. Along the top were a number of “braces” for drilling holes as well as some antique specialized molding planes and spoke shaves. The “bits” available for the “braces” were located in drawers as seen in the Pic 3.”

“My father was primarily a “hand tool” guy, but did have a few power tools as seen inthe next Pic. Note how all the tools, with the exception of a router acquired in later years, are all constructed with metal cases—no plastic! Other power tools (Pic 5) consisted of a bench drill press, a grinder, a Unimat metal lathe, and a homemade disc sander.”

“In another corner of the shop (Pic 6) you can see a 1930s version of a multipurpose power tool. This combination tool was given to my father when he was a teenager. You can see the wood lathe and a removable “jigsaw” (now called a scrollsaw). This jigsaw could be removed and replaced with a very small table saw when needed. My father was still using this lathe in the 60s and 70s as you can see by the number of turning tools he acquired and maintained. To the right you can see his set of handsaws and block planes.”

“In the final work area of the shop is what he called his “metalworking” area (Pic 7). This area consisted of a variety of rasps, files, metal cutting tools, pliers, and hammers.”

“Many of my father’s older tools were inherited from his high school wood shop teacher. They formed a strong friendship when my dad was in high school and became lifelong friends. Many of these tools were originally stored in a tool chest (Pic 8) passed down from his family. The outside this tool chest looks pretty old and worn. Once opened you can see the entire inside was beautifully constructed of inlaid diamond shaped pieces of wood with the owner’s name dated 1890. Within the chest are several sliding panels and compartments which held an entire set of “wood” molding planes (not shown). The story is that this chest used to be hauled around New York City by wagon for custom cabinet work by the owner.”

And this was my response:
Hey Kyle. From what I have seen, there are definitely two types of refinishing out there. You have the utilitarian version, which I am familiar with, which simply takes an old beat up piece of furniture and makes it serviceable and beautiful. This includes doing any necessary repairs, stripping off the old finish, possibly re-staining, and of course, applying a new finish of choice. The second type of refinishing is actually true “restoration”. This is a much more involved process that requires careful attention to detail and a boat-load of know-how. While I can’t tell you exactly how to maintain the value of an antique, I am sure it has a lot to do with keeping the original finish intact and doing spot repairs with period-accurate materials. Anyone in that industry could probably recite a long list of do’s and dont’s.

So at a point like this, you have a few questions to ask yourself (and your mother). Is this piece ever going to be sold? Is it highly valued by your mom simply because its “valuable” or is it an emotional attachment by virtue of its service in your family for so long? Also, it might be nice to know if the piece even has substantial value as an antique. Perhaps you should have it appraised before making a final call. You see Kyle, you could refinish that piece and make it look better than it did on the day it was created, but as a result you may very well (and most likely will) destroy its value as an antique.

As an aside, I will tell you that out of all of my videos (over 60 now), the one that I receive the most complaints and corrections about is the refinishing series. I suppose its my fault for not explicitly stating that this was not meant to be “Antique Restoration 101″. I had explicit instructions from the owners of that table and I did exactly what they wanted. An old decrepit table was pulled out of the back of a garage and was restored for sentimental value. The table would never be sold or even appraised. The customer simply wanted the table to match the color scheme of her current decor so that she could enjoy the same table her mother had enjoyed for so many years before her. Monetary value was irrelevant.

So really, this is a personal decision for you and your family. But to answer your question directly, even a beautiful refinishing job can completely destroy the value of an antique. Hope that helps.