Kitchen Hutch finsh & restoration

[dragit]

G'day everyone,
I've been asked to have a go at restoring an old kitchen hutch that has been in the family for a long time…

It's had a hard life, around 30 years ago it was dipped in a caustic bath by some absolute hacks, they lost the 2 sliding doors and broke some of the plastic/bakelite labels and didn't neutralise the timber properly after the bath, the grain has raised considerably and is rough.

It is very heavy and from what I can gather looks to be hardwood (plain vic ash or similar) with ply panelled sides and kauri boards that slide out (one being the whole width of the piece.

My mum thinks that it was always meant to painted as some of the timber appears to vary throughout the piece - not sure?

Some of the hardware has been replaced, there are screw holes that indicate that the drawer handles used to be semi-circular…

I'm not looking to take this thing back to it's original condition, but it's a nice unit and deserves a refinish at the very least.

I have restored a few pieces of furniture, but am definitely a novice, so I will outlay my plan and would appreciate any tips or guidance if you have any!

1. Scrub with the grimy bits with some sugar soap, then rinse off

2. Sand until the raised grain is smooth

3. Apply Oxalic Acid to try and get some of the original colour back, then rinse

4. Rub with pale boiled Linseed oil, for colour and rejuvenation

5. Rub with a Carnauba based wax

Apologies for the dodgy photos taken with my phone, hopefully give you some idea of what I am banging on about

[fineboxes]

Sound like a good plan, though I agree with your Mum originally most of these Cupboards were painted, Cream, Pastel lime green or light blue. But in the greater scheme of things when restored they often retain their natural finish.

All the best with it I'm sure it will look grand when finished and give many more years of service.

Cheers


Stephen

[dragit]

Hi all…
Took me awhile to get there and it isn't perfect but I thought someone may like to see how the hutch went…
I pretty much went with the plan I had outlined, medium sand, oxalic acid, pale boiled linseed x 2 coats, I skipped the wax in the end and went with a few (5-6) coats of shellac…
cheers

[dr4g0nfly]

Looks great, you've done a good job.

Who's the proud owner, Mum or SWMBO?

[Chief012]

Great job! Nice hutch and nice refinish. I like the little tags saying whats in the draw/cupboard,..dont often see those. Nice work.

[dragit]

Thanks guys,

Yes I did it for my Mum…

I realised when I started sanding that to go much further would involve a complete rebuild/restore it would have meant pulling apart completely and I wasn't up for that,
I think the caustic bath has damaged the ply which are the inserts of the doors… but the unit wasn't rickety at all so I opted for the light sand and refinish…

I replaced the rectangle handles with cup ones, though I think they are meant to look dark/black… But it looks a lot better than it was which was the goal…

It's an unbelievably heavy unit, I hope to never move it again!