Let's restore some dignity to this cedar chest

I don't really need another cedar chest, so I'll probably sell this off when it's restored.


1880 ish, with solid Kauri sides. Would have been a pretty little thing in it's day.


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This is going to be a lot of work. Pretty much a complete rebuild. It's loose in most of the joints.
I'll have to turn new knobs and bun feet. One of the top drawers is missing, so I'll have to build one from scratch. The main problem is that someone has used a caustic strip. Cedar hates this. The Kauri is fine though.


You can see how dry and open the grain is on the drawer fronts and the top (note the kilos of nails in the top as well :~).
I'll have to plane off the drawers and top to bring it back. I don't like doing this as it removes all of the character, but the stripper has ruined the surface.


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Nails in the dovetails :no:

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Here's the surviving top drawer front with a section planed off. I should be able to bring back some colour.

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At some stage the rail above the bottom drawer has been replaced upside down. You can see the lock keeper facing up :?

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I'll post some WIP pics as I find some time to make a start on it.

Looks like you will have your work cut out for you Thumbthumper but I agree it does have nice proportions and is worth saving. I have to admit in comparison the large cedar chest I am restoring is a walk in the park in comparison.

The thing is I have paint stripped plenty of cedar by hand (heat gunning off paint and using caustic based paint stripper and never encountered the problems you have with this chest. But on the other hand I have acquired pieces including doors that have been dipped and as in your chest equally had such problems. So yes agree one does need to be careful with cedar, but I think it is possibly a concentration and time factor re exposure as to how it affects cedar.

The good thing I think with your chest is that you have sufficient clues in terms of residual parts as to how it should look (ie such as the drawers). It is fortunate that you can turn up handles and bun feet. I am going to have to commission a local turner to turn up some blackwood feet for my chest and while I have two handles that are partially missing (broken) having completed the polishing of all the drawers including handles I think I might leave them as they are, in a sense an indication of the chest's history.

Hope you don't have to loose too much of the patina to bring back the colour. Will be watching your rescue of the chest. All the best with it. Dave

That sure is a lot of work ahead for you... including building a drawer....
(By comparison my latest is just a sand/stain/finish of a solid timber set of drawers)

Should be good to watch how it goes....


Geoff

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Horsecroft88

Hope you don't have to loose too much of the patina to bring back the colour. Will be watching your rescue of the chest. All the best with it.
Dave

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Cheers Dave,

I'm going to lose a lot of the character from the drawer fronts and the top. I will be planing off a fair bit to get to stable cedar.
This is not optimal, but required when the caustic stripper has eaten this far into the surface.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gyropilot

That sure is a lot of work ahead for you... including building a drawer....
(By comparison my latest is just a sand/stain/finish of a solid timber set of drawers)

Should be good to watch how it goes....

Geoff

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Yup ....
This will be a lot of work.
A complete rebuild. Its rare to have to rebuild a chest from the ground up, but it's either that, or it's firewood :no:.
This is a learning experience for me. It helps to know how they went about building these things.



I've been taking heaps of pictures so that I have a chance of getting it back together again.
This chest is held together by nails (lots of them) and glue blocks.

I'm still in the process of pulling it all apart.

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Here's a couple of shots of the worn drawer runners.
These blocks will be replaced.

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I'm not really sure of where to start once it's in bits.

Maybe I'll just clean each piece and start nailing it together like a big jigsaw puzzle.

I'm going to need to have a good think about this restoration :C

Cheers all,
Stu

Hey Stu,I think you are probably quite correct. Given how far you need to strip it down, from my experience the best thing first of all is to clean up each part, making sure of course you know where it fits in the jigsaw and then slowly start putting the main frame of the chest back together.

I have done this in the past with a small Huon Pine dresser top I previously restored and am doing exactly the same with the cedar box I am currently restoring. I think it really is the only way you can make sure it will come together nicely. Similarly that way you will also know what parts you may need to replicate to replace missing sections, or damaged areas.

Aah, you've started down the dangerous path of taking on a lost cause.:; I dunno if you remember my post from a while back in this forum section but your task seems akin to this. I several times questioned in that instance why I was rebuilding a poorly made original but maybe this is different in the sense that the original was well made and therefore there is less redesigning required. I desided early in the process that replacing worn runners (in both the drawer sides and in the cabinet) with equally soft timbers (like red cedar or kauri) are a waste of effort and replacing them with harder timbers is worth the fiddle, even if it isn't strictly traditional in a restoration. Where did you find this particular cabinet in a such a sad state?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by pampelmuse

Aah, you've started down the dangerous path of taking on a lost cause.:; I dunno if you remember my post from a while back in this forum section but your task seems akin to this. I several times questioned in that instance why I was rebuilding a poorly made original but maybe this is different in the sense that the original was well made and therefore there is less redesigning required. I desided early in the process that replacing worn runners (in both the drawer sides and in the cabinet) with equally soft timbers (like red cedar or kauri) are a waste of effort and replacing them with harder timbers is worth the fiddle, even if it isn't strictly traditional in a restoration. Where did you find this particular cabinet in a such a sad state?

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I was either a dangerous path or it was firewood :U

Your chest turned out quite well. Useful again.

This is a learning experience for me. I love seeing how they 'did' things. I love the fact that the sides are different dimensions, nothing is square, oversize (original) nails were used. They just grabbed bits that were handy for the interior case work.
I will be putting in reinforced drawer runners, and replacing the case runners with new Kauri blocks. I'm a bit of a traditionalist :doh:
There's a lot to do (see my next post).

This chest was bought cheaply at a Canberra market and has been sitting in the shed for years.
I haven't seen many Cedar fronted chests with solid Kauri sides, so I'm looking forward to the end result.

We're down to the bare bones now.

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Here's a pic of the base frame before removing the side and after. None of the glue blocks were holding.
I'll rebuild the base frame because there's a bit of dry rot, and the nailing points aren't sound.

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The first job I'll tackle is to replace the molding that runs around the base of the chest. It was missing the side boards that follow on from the front section.
I'm just glad that the rounded corners weren't smashed. These are the tricky bits to make.
I love an excuse to get out my hollow and round planes :U

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Stay tuned.

Looking good Stu. I know what you mean re the combination of cedar (front) and sides out of Kauri. I too have a small 4 drawer chest with cedar front and top but sides out of baltic (which a previous owner) tried to stain to match the cedar. Basically it looked rubbish and by stripping it back I gave back its honesty. I too had to do the base plinth repair as you will. Was an interesting fix to have to make.

Subscribed to this restoration.

Starting from the ground up.

Cleaning up the base molding.
Heat gun to scrape of the paint, then a scrub down with steel wool and metho.

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Choosing the appropriate hollow and round.

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After tracing out the profile onto the end grain, I nailed the board down to my workbench, and used a rebate plane to start the shaping.
The round and hollow plane finished the profile. Last pic is after a light sanding.

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Everything seems to match up well.

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I spent the rest of my workshop time today removing the last of the paint from the front frame, and cleaning.

I'll build the base frame next, and start nailing everything together.

Didn't have much time today as there was an AFL grand final (it wasn't going to watch itself :U).
I'm also settling in tonight to watch an elimination final in my preferred code. My beloved team just happens to be one of the teams competing :2tsup:.

Go the Roosters !!

Managed to get a few more things done this morning.

Planed off the large drawer fronts.

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I nailed the front frame together using the original nails.
I repositioned them slightly for strength.

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Once the frame was together, I grabbed a beer (I'm still celebrating the fact that my football team has made the grand final), and sat down to cut plugs to fill the nastier nail holes in the frame.

Tools of the trade.

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Here's the result.

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The front frame after a cleaning.

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And this .... is the rest of the chest :C

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I'm finding it hard to imagine seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.
I'll get there though.

Cheers all,
Stu

Nice work Stu, keep going as I can well see how good this is coming along. The front face looks really nice now.

Love see the tools you have, sadly mine are not as aged or impressive. Nice touch too in using timber dowels to make the joins. So much more original to the construction, and in being able to reuse the original nails etc. There is definitely light at the end of the tunnel for this chest.

I spent the long weekend away, so I didn't get much workshop time.

I did manage to get the bun feet turned.
The original feet would probably been pine. I used Bhutan Cypress, which is what I had laying around.
No template was used, just calipers.
They were then stained with a mix of red and brown ochre with metho, then given a light polish with shellac in the lathe. I'll use the same stain for the sides. This is probably what was originally done.

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Hope to get more done this weekend.

Some other commission jobs have been getting in the way of this restoration (picture frames, boxes etc.)

I managed to strip and clean the Kauri sides.
I don't like this part. Messy and time consuming.

Whilst my helper was scraping the paint from some parts (tests indicated no lead)...

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I got to work on the sides.
Someone did a good job painting them.
Sanded, primed, undercoated and topcoated :doh:

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They cleaned fairly well.
I used a gel strip, shavehook and a cabinet scraper. There is still a bit of primer in the grain which I may have to scrape. I'll test the ochre wash before going too much further.

You don't get wide Kauri boards like this any more.

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These side are part of the structural integrity of the chest. Now that they are ready, I can start the build from the ground up.

I spent the morning fixing most of the drawer runners. Cut off the excess, planed them back, and glued on new strips.
I'll be using plough strips to strengthen the runners after assembly (pic 2).

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I had a play with the staining of the knobs.
I set up a threaded dowell in the drill press, cleaned the knobs, rubbed on the ochre mix, and gave them an initial polish. This is a lot easier when they are spinning.
For the stain, I used a cloth dipped in my metho brush wash (metho with a bit of shellac), and dabbed a bit of red and brown ochre on the cloth. It's not an exact science :U

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I'll start building the case and the drawers soon. Stay tuned.