Distressed

[adrian]

I went to a furniture shop here in Port Macquarie to get some ideas for a TV cabinet I've been asked to build for a friend. I felt really good about my standard of work after leaving there. Here I am, a rank novice and I've just realised that I have been making the mistake of trying to be as precise as possible given the limitations of my 'handyman' tools and lack of any training (except for watching New Yankee Workshop).
The 'cottage style/distressed' stuff is all the rage at the moment and instead of trying to repair the chipped timber that sometimes occurs when the router comes to the edge of the rebate I should be burning the fault with a soldering iron to accentuate it.
I was going to get a jointer and a planer/thickneser when what I should be looking for is the skankiest, most warped timber I can find and do absolutely nothing to it except put it together with rusty nails and spit.
I better make hay while the sun shines. I might even bash some of my old project with a bicycle chain just to make them look better.

[Cliff Rogers]

G'day.

I went down to the demolition yard & bought $4 worth of old pine cornice moulding.
I took it home & stripped the old paint off it with a wire brush in an electric drill & cut it up with a mitre box & hand saw to make a frame.
I made the rusty nail holes stand out more by giving them a bit of a 'burn' with the wire brush & then touched them up with a black niko pen.
I rubbed a couple of coats of oil into it & stuck a mirror with a beveled edge in it & hung it on the wall.
Every one that sees it wants one just like it.
You can do the same sort of thing with a single piece of old wood & a couple of brass hat hooks & you have a hat hanger that every one wants..... shame you can't see it once you hang a couple of hats on it.

[Sir Stinkalot]

Originally posted by adrian
I might even bash some of my old project with a bicycle chain just to make them look better.

I assume that this was meant as a tongue in cheek comment ..... I find that recycled timber with all of its irregularities can look striking but as soon as you start to make your own "character" with a chain or the like it screams tacky. If you have a look at some of the country pine collection it is clear that the "character" has been inflicted by a device that repeats its pattern every 300mm or so.

Stinky.

[ozwinner]

Hi all
I used to work next to a "woodwork" manufacterer some years ago.
His method of ageing tables was to lay them flat on the gravel road, and push them along with his ute.
Many a time he got a bit carried away, and totaly destroyed them, legs all munched up under the ute.
Being a Hells Angel, probably didnt help him.
Cherrs, Allan

[Wayne Davy]

My wife has a very effective method of distressing my fine (cough) woodwork that she came across years ago.

She has an old Calico bag (like the old bank money bags), which is filled with a hand full of various sized nuts, bolts and misc bits of metal (nil sharp edges) as well as some small bits of hardwood. You simply take the bag and strategically give the piece a light bashing. The art is to give areas that would have got used/touched more often more “treatment” than others. For instance, for a desk, you would “treat” the top section in front of the chair way more than any other spot.

It’s quite simple to work out what areas to focus on, just sit/lie/touch the piece as you would use it and look at the areas you touch most often then “treat” those areas more than the rest. As a finishing touch, take an old, large nail and give it some scratches here and there particularly on legs/sides. You can also rub in a tiny bit of boot polish into the scratches and dents to further age them.

[silentC]

Was looking at some friends' furniture over the Christmas break. It's all store-bought stuff from various poncy places in Newtown and Balmain.

There was a CD storage unit, basically a 4' x 4' chest of CD-sized drawers, and one of those coffee tables with the hinged lids on either side. All the joints were butt-joints, not a dovetail, dado or mitre to be seen. The timber was all rubbish of the type used to make pallets like the one my jointer came on. I didn't dare ask how much they paid for them but I can imagine.

This is the 'rustic country-style' furniture that has become trendy over the last 10 years. What they mean is that it's a bunch of rubbish thrown together half-arsed with not a thought spared for longevity. It looks 'cool' in your inner-west terrace house but don't expect it to be in one piece in another 10 years, by which time it will be out of fashion anyway.

I don't blame people for making this stuff as it sells like hotcakes and is so quick and cheap to make. In fact I'll bet most of it isn't made here anyway. There's probably a bunch of importers rubbing their hands together right now as the latest load of crap from PRC washes up in its container.

A mate of mine is a bit arty and we used to argue about some of the crap that artists put out. I'd say to him that a good portrait or a landscape was a better demonstration of an artist's talent than a canvas that has been pelted with a paintball gun and then rolled around on in the nude. He'd argue that when an artist learns to paint, they study all of the masters and learn to paint 'properly', then they forget all that and get out the paintball gun because nobody wants to buy landscapes anymore. Maybe it's the same with furniture.

[DarrylF]

Personally I loathe the vast majority of the nasty, tacky crud sold these days - part of the reason I got into woodworking in the first place. Figured I couldn't bugger it up as badly as most of the commercial junk. I particularly loathe 'rustic' and 'distressed' furniture. The genuine results of many years of care & use on a fine piece of furniture are a different story - still not really my taste, but definitely light years from the junk.

But hey - whatever floats your boat I guess. Just glad I don't have to live with it.

[soundman]

I have seen my fair share of junk distressed furniture the imported asian stuff has to be the worst.

but I have seen some well crafted rustic furniture.

and have played with some distressed finishes my self.

I recon that a rustic finish is no excuse for poor workmanship, by the same token the ludites that buy the cheap junk get what they deserve.

No truly well informed "person of breeding" would buy such rubbish.

[adrian]

Yes Stinky, the tongue was planted firmly in the cheek but I did see someone bash some pine with a chain on a show like Better Homes and Gardens or maybe it was one of those Pommy shows on the Lifestyle channel.
Most of the timber (pine) these days comes pre-distressed anyway. I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that I will have to invest in a thicknesser and spend more time in the local junkyard looking for secondhand timber.