Bookcase secretaire in need of love

[fletty]

Picked up my latest restoration project this morning, $50 via Facebook.

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It it seems to be structurally sound, has ALL of its handles, needs a new hinge on the fold down writing surface but hopefully won’t warrant/need a complete strip?

fletty

[John Saxton]

A bit of TLC & it will come up a treat ,look forward to seeing it renewed.

[crowie]

How old do you think it is Alan?

[fletty]

I haven’t done a ‘Silent Witness’ forensic assessment yet but the only thing I have noticed is that the handles, which I had presumed to be bone, seem to be ‘translucent bakelite’ which would date it to about 1920 at the earliest? I can’t yet find photographs of any similar pieces to help date it so I’m going to stick with “about 1930” until I find otherwise?

[fletty]

The worst damage is the broken-out hinge mount on the drop-down writing surface. An earlier attempt to repair it with nails and contact cement was a dismal failure AND it oozed through cracks onto the visible outer surface as well!

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I found the nails by using using a powerful rare earth magnet and removed them easily because, for most of their length, they were only in contact cement or fresh air!

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I rebated the hinge mount mount area from the inside leaving the outside face intact hoping to retain the original patina from the outside at least.

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... and a new insert was fitted, clamped and glued in place.

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Fixing the equally damaged hinge mount INSIDE the bookcase will be much more difficult!

fletty

[DaveTTC]

Nice find

DaveTTC
The Turning Cowboy
Turning Wood Into Art

[Bushmiller]

$50 sounds like a good buy.

Regards
Paul

[graham.murfett]

Nice unit. What timber and finish do you think it is?


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[fletty]

Nice unit. What timber and finish do you think it is?

It is definitely a shellac finish but the timber is still a bit of a mystery. It looks like mahogany (EDIT: NOT walnut !) but, if so, is definitely not ‘select’ grade?
It is starting to divulge its secrets but the original method of hingeing the writing surface isn’t a secret it has given up yet!

[John Saxton]

I haven’t done a ‘Silent Witness’ forensic assessment yet but the only thing I have noticed is that the handles, which I had presumed to be bone, seem to be ‘translucent bakelite’ which would date it to about 1920 at the earliest? I can’t yet find photographs of any similar pieces to help date it so I’m going to stick with “about 1930” until I find otherwise?

I remember my mother had a set of cuttlery with bone handles handed down from her parents ,this may suggest the time period you were looking at
It may be a thing from that era that appealed!

[Xanthorrhoeas]

The drop-front desks and desk bookcase/china cabinet combinations were very popular in the early 1900s. The hinges often broke out when people neglected to pull out the support slides. The slides on yours seem to be lacking their knobs/drops so that would explain why the hinges have broken out so badly.

I've attached a couple of photos that shows one that my mother owned with the flap/desk dropped and the support slides in place as well with one closed. I thought this one was Tas oak but the person who bought it thought it was Queensland Maple. You can see the slides have small pulls on the end. It looks like your support slides are missing theirs.
Tasmanian Oak drop-front ladies desk open.JPGTasmanian Oak drop-front ladies desk.JPG

[Xanthorrhoeas]

P.S. You can see that this one also has simple butt hinges, which are quite strong enough as long as the support slides are utilised. I have another item that utilises strap hinges instead.

The support slides seem to use a couple of different techniques to raise them to the correct level as they are pulled out. One of mine has an angled slot through it with a bar trough the slot so that the slide rises up on the bar - very ingenious. I'm not sure what the mechanism is for the one in the photo above.

[fletty]

Thanks Xanth’
I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that this piece, which never made any claims to being fine furniture, uses at least 2 different timbers one of which looks like Qld maple! I think however that I have solved the puzzle of the writing surface geometry. I HAD presumed that, when closed, it fitted flush with the drawer and cabinet door fronts but that wasn’t supported by the remaining evidence of the hinge placement, but then I ‘found’ the stops that the panel rested against ......

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.... which indicate that the writing surface sits at rather a jaunty angle when closed but is flush with the bottom surface of the desk cubicle when open! I’ll prop it in place and take a pic.

[NCArcher]

Is that so that it stays closed under it's own power? No catch.
The slide out desk supports cant be very long. Can you slide them out and show us with the desk on top?

[Xanthorrhoeas]

Yes, indeed. If you look at the photo of my mother's desk above you can see that, like yours, the bottom edge of the drop desktop actually projects out above the cupboards below. That seems to be one of the ways that they were made.

The earlier example of a dropdown desktop that I have is different. The face of the item is vertical and the drop desktop is hinged from an internal level surface that forms the back of the desktop when open - if that description makes sense.