18th century Japanese 'kuruma tansu" wheeled chest restoration

[fudo133]

Hello everyone, having done a few searches i couldn't help but notice the slight shortage of Japanese furniture threads, much less ones about restoring antique chests and such, so i thought i'd show off the course of my attempts to restore the latest piece of furniture i've bought
Also, as a warning in advance, a lot of the photos for the first half of this series will feature this chest upside down, it needs a new set of wheels put in on end before any other real work can be done.

Here it is at the moment, exactly as it was when i bought it, the 'slats' continue all the way around the sides of the chest, from the front doors, the sides and the back. The frame, wheels, slats and the backing of the doors are made from keyaki (zelkova serrata) with the backing of the back and sides made from hinoki cypress.
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As you can see in this photo, some work has already been done to replace hidden sections of the frame that had suffered from dry rot with new tasmanian oak, also, the sheer thickness of the chest frame itself. the 'thinnest' sections are 10cm square, with the larger piece at the bottom being about 11cm across and roughly 17cm at its widest point.

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[fudo133]

Cleaned, its blackish surface would show up much more like this
Japanese Rare Antique Karuma Tansu (Wheeled Chest).
or this
Japanese Antique Rare Keyaki Karuma Tansu.

Personally i'm planning on ultimately keeping it dark, and not altering it too much from what it currently looks like (apart from washing off the excess filler and using a little fine steel wool and wax to buff out the dull sections of its blackish finish) after all, once you've scrubbed away 300 or so years of patina, you're not going to be able to put it back in a hurry

[Chief012]

Wow! Very interesting - looking forward to seeing how this progresses

[tea lady]

Looks great. Did you find wood for the wheels yet?

[fudo133]

Looks great. Did you find wood for the wheels yet?

yes and no, i've basically just decided to do a laminating job so i can get it underway as soon as possible, in the future i'll try to find a couple of solid pieces for the axel and the wheels to redo them. for the moment i've settled on 4 layers of 19mm thick tassie oak for the wheels and a pair of 5cm thick tassie oak pieces glued together for the axel...it took from friday till now with me working from 8 till 8 barehanded landscaping and scrubbing my hands every night for at least an hour to get the worst of the glue off my hands (i've still got the odd dark patch here and there), so i'm guessing it should be strong enough to hold all the wood i'm using together

[fudo133]

Hi again, i did a little bit of work yesterday on part of the frame, mainly just chiselling out rotten wood back to a squared off solid wood cavity so that i can cut a block of tassie oak to glue into it to take the place of what was rotten. It should still be solid enough, since even though about half of this side of the original wood gone, there's still another 5 cm thick half on the other side thats very very solid, so the joint shouldn't suffer too much structurally from this sort of work, especially once the whole area's been beefed up again with new wood and a small ocean of glue.
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Most of the other major sections of nastiness in the frame have been taken care of already with large amounts of filler and glue put into the sections that are weak but not so weak as to warrant removal, now for the most part they'll just need some more refining and squaring off before the new timber can be glued in and stained to match the old.

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Aside from that there's not much new to report, i've now got the wood for the wheels and have the axel pieces glued up, so once i mark those out they can be cut and i'll be ready to start the big work

[fudo133]

Apologies for the massive inactivity, i gave the axel to a friend to do the really heavy cutting for me 'to save time', long story short, a ten minute cut along the predrawn lines job turned into a 3 week fiasco that left me with a partially lathe turned axel made to the wrong dimensions, so i had to use chisels to bring it down to the right size. I got the wheels turned through a wood turner friend of my dad's and those have ended up great, i should be able to start heavy work on the chest this week with any luck

[fudo133]

I've got the wheels and the axel in, as well as done quite a bit of other structural work like splicing in new wood in the rotten areas in the frame of the chest that unfortunately is barely noticeable at the moment...we're not quite at the point that i can glue the axel and the major replacement pieces in and clamp the chest back together again so it can be flipped, but slowly but surely we're getting there!
At the very least, by this time next week it should be standing on its wheels again for the first time in more than 10 years
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[fudo133]

Back again! A great deal has been done since the last update, the worst rotten and eaten slat on the left side has been repaired by cutting away the eaten and rotten back side of the piece and using the patina rich facing side as a veneer to be glued to a new backing made from laminated left over pieces of Japanese Chestnut that were cut out from other unsalvageable sections of the chest, the same was also done to create a replacement for the missing 'joist' pictured (apologies for using the wrong terminology, after having just gotten home from a 16 hour day, the correct word currently escapes me).
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I also created another 'joist' from some very very old and very very hard Tassie oak replace the one i'd previously made using pine (shown below) as the pine version looked and felt a little thin and flimsy compared to the existing original Japanese chestnut ones.
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new slats were made for the interior of the chest and the shelf support using tassie oak, and last but not least, just before i left tonight the blocks to receive the axel, the axel, the wheels, all the new slats and 'joists', the entire left side of the chest and the new spliced in sections of tassie oak on the right side as well as all the main joints were glued into place and clamped very tightly (but very carefully) and new pegs were driven in to secure the vertical sections of the frame better...boy is it unnerving to hear a 300 year old chest creaking, groaning and cracking under the pressure of 5 rather substantial sash clamps as you're trying to get the joints to come together properly...so far i'm really hoping i don't find any nasty surprises like new cracks when i undo the clamps and get ready to turn the chest over onto its wheels...

Here's how it looked when i walked out the door tonight, sorry for the crappy photos, i left my camera at home so i had to take these with my laptop.
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[fudo133]

Back again with yet more progress. At last its been flipped onto its wheels, (with a rather large degree of effort) after which i did a makeshift 'sought of half accurate, half made up' japanesey thank you/blessing/cleansing ritual thing involving throwing salt and pouring sake on part of it...just in case any potential bad spirits were so inclined as to make my back ache even more so after lifting it.

Its got a bit of rather severe worm damage to the left side on the top of it, but since the timber that's been eaten away at is still largely solid once you get down a centimetre or so past the rot and 'lunch remains' i'm thinking it should be fairly straightforward to just chisel out the worst of the damage and splice in a new piece of timber to bring it back up to where its meant to be (most likely tassie oak or redgum with a thick hand cut zelkova veneer glued over the top).

Aside from that its really just in need of a bit of filler cleaning, colour matching, a verrry thin sealer coat of shellac to seal and protect what's quite a delicate patina from a good 3 centuries of smoke and dirt, and finally a thorough wax

bad laptop photo again, still haven't found the camera grrrr
This time though we've got my boss standing next to it to give you an idea of scale

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[fudo133]

Only a little bit more real work to report on at the moment as i've been working on other stuff for customers, most notably a pair of red lacquer cake boxes that might as well be the spawn of satan himself for how long they took to repair.

Back the the chest though, I've chiselled out the worst of the worm damaged area and glued in a piece of hinoki cypress with a 5mm thick keyaki/zelcova veneer on it to fill in the missing section - seen in picture 2 - the damaged area that's been replaced had been eaten down to about 3 centimetres deep along the entire length, and i've started filling some of the worse areas of bug damage on the rest of the chest with black filler and scraped off some more of the excess dried glue spots from the sections i couldn't reach when it was upside down. Aside from that, i've just taken a lot of better photos of the work that's already been done so you can actually see it.

Not sure as yet what to do about the huge bow in the top section of the front half of the frame, i've tried clamping it and although it'll come down to where it should be under pressure, it won't hold it at all

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Here's a shot of the original axel and wheels, slathered by its previous owner in black filler to cover up some very unsightly but mostly very shallow cosmetic holes and damage
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Two sections i had to replace, the one on the left was done using tassie oak, with a smaller area of bug damage filled in with black filler, i would have liked to have chiselled it out as well, but being that this end is the one that's had the heaviest damage and replacements i thought it would be best to leave the areas that were still nice and strong alone and to simply focus on what HAD to be replaced.

The photo on the right on the other hand shows one of the slats on the other end of the chest that i made by cutting the original heavily eaten and rotten slat into a veneer and then attaching it to a layer of tassie oak stained and coloured to match...i think it matches reasonably well? (the bottom slat)
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Just a couple of photos of the new wheels and the new slats i made up, the one on the right/ the lighter one is tassie oak coloured with a brown Dick van Dyke water stain and a coat of thinned shellac, the one on the left is the slat i made by laminating the non eaten sections of japanese chestnut that i was able to save from other partially eaten areas.
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This is one of the slats that i've completely replaced, since the old one was totally eaten away
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There's also some unusual breaks in the original ironwork that will require new steel to be cut and butted up to the old, then the space in between hidden with filler and black shellac over the top
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Now i'm desperately hoping that 'all' i have to do is put some new pieces of wood into the door tracks to fill in the area ground out by 300 years of friction and wood against wood door sliding, take off, glue and clamp together then renail the top of the chest to make sure its nice and tight and that its level again, cut a couple of pieces to fill in some holes in the back of the chest, and put a new floor into the chest since the old one's been eaten too severely to be able to save it.

and then we should be onto purely cosmetic work...at long last

[fudo133]

Huge update, since last time. The holes in the back have been filled with wood cut from the old floor and risers have been put into the tracks for the doors to allow them to slide freely and at the level they should be at. A new floor's been cut and put in, though, as a result of not having any wood of around the same age or type that was the right thickness i ended up having to simply use a newer and thicker piece of 70 year old hinoki cypress and notching out the underside of it to make it sit over the slats at the right height (Note, notching out boards by hand on a 36 degree day in an unconditioned tin warehouse in front of a wall of sun facing non opening windows is NOT an enjoyable task).
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Following a little staining with some Vandyke water crystals and filling a knot that broke apart when i was notching out the underside (which will be colour matched once the filler's dry) and its looking closer to what it should
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As can also be seen above on the right side, i cut a new piece of zelkova to replace a large piece that had broken off some time ago, and cut zelkova 'caps' for the holes from the mortises to cover up the tassie oak pegs that were driven in to help make the frame a little more solid and to secure the new piece of zelkova i used to replace the bug eaten area on the top of the right side of the frame.

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The bottom section of end grain on the left and the top on the right are original, the other two are the caps that i cut. They'll still need more staining and darkening here and there, but they should end up matching well once everything's been given a sealer coat of shellac before i start waxing.
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The formerly completely eaten and missing end with the new piece of zelkova stained to more or less match the original frame pieces. The top panel of the chest was also completely removed, all its splits and cracks were glued and clamped shut, the slats underneath were taken out, the notches for them cleaned of dust, dirt and debris, then they were all put back in, secured with new nails since the original ones had completely rusted out, then the top was put back on and likewise secured with new nails since all its original ones had rusted away too.

Inside, blasphemous as it is, for the time being, i'll be keeping the filler exposed simply because i need to get this chest home sooner rather than later since the boss is getting a little testy about it taking up space. I'll ultimately get rid of the exposed filler completely and splice in new chestnut though. The floor and the original shelf will get a sealer coat of shellac too when i do the rest of the chest.

Thus far we're looking alright i think
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[fudo133]

Yet more updates! I've done a little more staining and colouring on the top to help blend the new zelkova with the old and to help hide the ares of filler a little better...eventually those might end up being taken out and replaced with solid wood, but that'll be a while down the track i think. (apologies for the less than great photos, i was balancing on 5 milk crates to take them so i was a bit unsteady)
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I've also replaced the missing sections of metal work with new pieces cut from a sheet of rusty steel that came out of a dilapidated warehouse down the road that's being converted into a home. And as of this week i've also given the whole thing a sealer coat of shellac to help protect the original finish and to blend in the new sections a little better. I think its come up well.


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Heres the left end before (on the left) and following a coat of shellac (middle and right). Owing to how much lighter it looked after its sealer coat i was a little worried that that almost black colour of the rest of the chest that had been part of what made me fall for it could end up vanishing too, sending me into a little panic. After a bit of thinking and stressing i decided to just carry on and give everything a coat basically to protect what was there and to see how the rest of it came up before i really started panicking.

Surprise Surprise!
After giving the other end a sealer coat i discovered that the extremely dark sooty black shine i loved wasn't lost after all!
Perhaps the other end had just seen the sun a little more and had bleached out or else maybe someone had wiped the dust and grime off that end more so than the other?
Left, before shot, right, after shot
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Following the reveal of the dark end i decided that the other end should probably be darkened a little to match it. Using a rubber, i applied roughly 2-3 thin coats of a verrrry weak mix of shellac and black pigment.
This was the result, i think it matches the other end reasonably well compared to before.

How about you? Does anyone think i should have just left it lighter as it was as part of the history of the piece? or alternatively, is there anyone who would have preferred me to have stayed away from using any sort of extra finish whatsoever and simply left it as it was or waxed it?

After shot

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I also gave the back a coat too, which dramatically changed its appearance from being filthy and almost impossibly dusty (even after 5 attempts at cleaning off the worst of the loose dust, bird crap and chalk marks from god knows where)

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Finally, i've also given the top, the front and the doors a coat too, unfortunately the top section of the frame, in addition to being warped to such an extent that it was almost impossible to straighten, had also been bleached to a decidedly unpleasant murky green colour from the sun, so it was given a coat of darker black pigment and shellac after its sealer coat.

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I think the old and the new parts of the top blend together fairly well on the top, it'll always be a bit rough and beastly, but i think considering the style of the rest of it, its age, where it came from and how its been cared for over the years its reasonably acceptable. As i said earlier, i may, at some point remove the sections of filler and replace them with solid wood and then blend it in again, but that'll be a ways down the road. For the time being i'm happy

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Last but not least! Here's the front of the chest, apologies for the slight glare coming off the top edges of the doors and the frame.
I've decided not to worry about the worn down area on the top edge of the top slat of the left door, simply because its very old damage and i think has enough history that it should be allowed to remain as a little scar of time, much like the array of other little dings. The numerous bug holes scattered over almost the entire body of the chest will be filled with hard dark wax later on, simply owing to the fact that none of them are structurally compromising and none are especially large so they should be able to blend in fairly well. There are still a few little patchy areas on the right door that i might darken a little tomorrow to get them to blend in a little more with the rest, but aside from those few issues its looking more or less the way i wanted it to.

Now the whole thing just needs a cut back with some fine steel wool, a second coat of shellac for the front, sides and top (perhaps a 3rd coat of shellac for the top too) and another cut back, and then two coats of dark wax and a major polishing and buffing to bring it up to a nice deep rich glow before i bring it home

I hope anyone reading this so far has been enjoying it and hasn't been too bored by it all

[fudo133]

Only a little update today, but we're finally in the absolute last stretch of it now!

I gave the whole front a second coat on monday and the slats on the doors a third. Gave the sides a second coat too and did another on the back as well. Then had a minor panic attack seeing how (once more) black had seemingly changed to red on the front of the chest...its really quite incredible how much the colours in the patina of this chest play off each other and seem to change under the shellac in different light levels - the second shot was taken at about 5pm when it was still extremely light.

You might also notice that i've replaced the missing areas of metal work with new pieces cut to fit and filed along the edges to match the existing bevel.
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On tuesday i spent most of the day cutting back the edge from the shellac with fine steel wool to get it ready for waxing, as well as doing a bit of fairly rough and ragged colouring on the inside of the chest to help hide the absolute worst of the filler. As i mentioned previously, this is only a very temporary feature, once i've got it home and no longer have to deal with pressure from the boss to get it moving i'll cut out the filler on the slats inside and replace it with solid wood.
Hence why all the colouring done on these areas was applied using a water stain over a very well sealed coat of shellac, so i should be able to strip it off fairly easily later.
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After being cut back its looking a bit duller and less plastic and treacle-ish

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Finally, the end's in sight and we have a clear picture of what it'll end up looking like, 2 coats of dark Liberon wax, first coat applied with 0000 steel wool, then buffed, second coat put on with a brush and left to sit for about 20 minutes to half an hour and then rubbed off and polished using regular old towels.

I'm very happy with how the finish and the colour has turned out and that almost none of the original dark and glossy sooty finish has disappeared over the course of my work on it. You might be able to see in the 3rd photo especially the way that the red and orange tones in the wood come out in the light too, so on the whole, the chest definitely isn't pure black.

After a crappy week i was also overjoyed today to finally find a traditional Japanese padlock big enough to fit the locking bolts on the doors (albeit after i'd cleaned the encrusted rust and dirt out of the inside of each of the holes so the lock could slide through properly), and after a few hours of searching and trying hundreds of spare keys i also ended up with a key that fits it perfectly

now i just need to give the sides a couple of coats, the top needs one or two more coats, and the back needs a single coat, plus one for the shelf and one for the floor inside the chest too...all in all, about a full day's work, so i'm starting to get very excited about finally being able to bring it home

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[tea lady]

Wow. Looks fantastic.