Query for the antique restorers

Hope you can help folks.

I'm about ready to shellac a sanded-back colonial cedar chest of drawers.

There's enough variation in colour between the carcass and the drawers to be noticeable.

Having stripped several of these, my guess is that the original french polishers added a bit of talc or rottenstone to the shellac to make it somewhat opaque, and probably added some stain as well to make the item look like mahogany instead of its natural self.

I think I could live with a bit of opacity in the polish, but judging it is going to be interesting. Too much and it's just going to look like tan shoe polish.

Also, anyone know of a source of supply of the threaded knobs for these chests? There are some around but the edge of the flange is too well rounded over to look like an original.

I spent about an hour answering this one a few days ago and lost the B thing a few seconds before hitting the submit button. So here is the abridged version.

The grain would most likely have originally been filled with a mix of plaster and stain which not only filled but also coloured. Any colouring in the polish would most likely have been done with an aniline spirit dye in the shellac as the polishing progressed.

For ease of work I would be trying to match the colour before applying the finish. Wet down the whole piece then colour the lighter timber to match the darkest of the wet timber. This is much easier than trying to colour match as you go, which takes a fair bit of skill and can look really bad if not done right.

You could colour up using a teak or fruitwood wiping stain as the base and adding burnt umber universal tint to give you the right colour. I haven't used stains like these for a number of years and aren't too sure what colours they come in right now, but it is also possible that there is a cedar stain that will match pretty well.

Your other option is to use a cedar woodgrain filler to fill the grain and also help with the colour matching. You can also add universal tint to this to give a variety of colours to help in the matching.

Hope this is of some help.

Cheers - Neil :)

Why do you need to hide the defference in the color, isn't that the way the piece was made, and at some time since it has been refininshed to a uniform color ?

Tim

It would have been colour matched to a uniform colour all over when manufactured. As was often the case where some sections may have almost been white in colour and the others ranging from pink through to a deep redish brown.

Back when this was made they took pride in the fact that their work was of a uniform colour, as a matter of fact it probably wouldn't have sold if the colours were missmatched.

It is only recently that we have dropped our standards and partially accepted inferior missmatched colours in our furniture, and even today you won't find too much in the shops that isn't colour matched or stained.

Neil

Thanks Neil - I appreciate your taking the time.

The original timber - the open grain and imperfections - was filled with something white (English whiting?) which was a sod to sand out. But anyway, that's done.

I might experiment with some Timbermate as a grain filler, darkened a little with one or a mix of the Ubeaut water-based dyes. Seem to recall someone published a colour wheel on the web which would help with mixing the dyes.

Sure is a labour of love.