Midcentury Modern Treasure Restored!

this thing is giving me fits but it looks like a desk I'm getting there I'm Tom Johnson Thomas Johnson antique furniture restoration in gorm Maine and uh I'm going to fix a snack [Applause] that's better you know this reminds me of two of my favorite projects let's take a look these are two knives two cheese slicers we found at a flea market really nice examples of midcentury design they were designed uh for dance by torren Vivian Toren buo hu a Swedish Master silver smith the round handles fit into a corresponding hollowed out part on a cutting board to make a set these handles are all here they're not in horrible shape except I suspect they've been run through a dishwasher many many times they're completely dried out and need to be refinished one of the handles though has a bad burn mark and we're going to have to deal with that so the first thing I want to do is take care of this burnt handle I think what I want to do is chisel out that burnt part and I've got some nice uh tight grain teak here that if I can get it in there correctly AO match pretty [Music] well okay I'm getting down to Good Wood here but I think I want to keep going till all the burn part is gone it's not it's still a little Punky interesting there seems to be a a void here uh I guess what I also seem to be coming into what might be a rivet too I'm a little unsure I think I'll proceed I'm a little unsure about that rivet especially I'll have to proceed carefully the rivet doesn't seem to be metal it seems to be wood and I'm thinking that I'm going to fill that void rather than keep cutting I need to go a little bit further to get rid of the burn on that side of it but once that's done I think I'll just fill it and then glue in my plug okay so now I'll set my timer for 5 minutes I want to Chisel that before it's completely hard I'll try it in about five minutes in the meantime I can start getting my I've got to orient this piece of wood and cut it so that it fits in there okay so let me chisel that all right now back to my piece I'm going to put in [Music] there good it's a little bit a little bit wide I'm not sure about my grain orientation I think I'm not I think I have to cut another piece I don't think my grain is exactly [Music] right yeah I like this orientation better I think if I can I need to square up my sides on the on the sander but then I think uh think I'll have it okay I think I've got this pretty well now I've been back and forth to the sander a half a dozen times taking off so little each time I think it fits pretty well but the last time I was fitting it a little chip came up and I'm going to glue that down first you know while I'm struggling to get this piece back where it belongs I began to realize that right next to it there's more chip out that I didn't notice before I think that what I've got to do now with that chipping right there I've got to redo this whole thing I got to I got to bring my cut back to here and then cut a wider piece to fit in [Music] there I I've been back and forth to the sander a few times making Minor Adjustments but I think it's good I think it's really tight I'm going to go ahead and glue it down I still have a little bit of chipping in that same area but I'm just going to leave it alone I'm going to glue this down and maybe I have to fill it a little bit we'll see I'm going to use a waterproof glue because this is a kitchen utensil so it's bound to come in contact with water okay I'll let that dry overnight and tomorrow we'll see what we got okay let's do it [Music] the toughest thing about this job is that as I shape this down I cannot hit the Met not even [Music] once okay now I'll switch to uh sandpaper start with some 60 grip okay so now I'm ready to uh switch to 100 grit but I think first I'm going to I'm going to tape off this metal around the wood uh as a visual aid and uh it won't really prevent damage but it might give me a little bit of uh little bit of a Grace warning U as I sand close to these edges so I'm going to sand this with 100 then 150 then 220 I've got to do the other side I also have to do the other three utensils after I've done that we'll get back to we'll see what the how the color of my patch matches the rest of the wood and what if anything uh we're going to do about it okay I've got all four utensils sand it down to 220 so now I'm going to remove the tape and apply the first coat I'm going to brush on the first coat uh and keep it wet for a while so it'll really soak in but then I will just wipe this off I'm not trying to build up a shiny coat my patch is a little lighter when I sanded this wood all of them turned a little darker but that's okay I if anything I want my patch to be lighter I'll stain it a little bit more after the first coat I'm not worried about uh finish getting on the metal I'll wipe it with a little bit of paint thinner now while I'm watching these handles and uh and and wetting the wood out wherever I see it drying so as I see it drying and soaking in like here on the end grain I'm just going to add more finish I'll do this for 15 or 20 minutes keep it wet okay this is uh I've been keeping it wet but it's soaked in so well I don't really need to wipe off the wood I'm just going to wipe off the metal again one more time and uh and that'll be it for today okay I've let these dry overnight but now I've got to address the issue of the color of my patch I'm disappointed how light it is on the other hand if I went to redo it I don't have any teak that dark either it's more like the color of Walnut the first thing I'm going to do is I've sanded up a piece of teak and I'm going to test my stains to get this color then I'm going to clean this down with lacer thinner and when it dries I'm going to sand it again with 220 then I'll stain my patch and give it another coat of oil okay now I'm going to let this dry for a while and then I may sand around this bottom Edge a little bit I just went over just a tat I let this dry for about an hour I'm going to put some oil on it I might have to put a little more stain right there I've let this coat dry overnight it's looking good I'm going to put a little more color in this one little spot right here I'm going to let that dry and then I'll apply a second coat and I think the final coat to all the handles now with this coat I'm going to wet sand with 600 paper using the the oil now this side with my patch I'm not going to sand and now I'm just wiping them just gently with this paper towel all right there your four corn utensils by Dan really two pairs spreader and a cheese slicer you know when they came in the the wood looked terrible it looked like they been run through a dishwasher please don't put wooden utensils wooden handles or knives in your dishwasher I had to patch that one that was burned really badly I think it looks pretty good perfect a lot of commenters wanted to know why I didn't just replace that knife handle but I guess I'm just as too determined to keep things as original as possible and besides making a new handle would be no picnic either I like this video because I don't talk very much but it shows every detail of a very interesting project and I really like the bar cabinet that you'll see at the end of the video These are the Tambour doors of a mid-century modern Rosewood bar cabinet and you'll see the entire cabinet when I reinstall these in the customer's home I don't know why they're called Tambour doors except the word Tambour always involves things that are round like think like a tambourine for instance but what's happened here is the material has deteriorated and needs to be replaced the first thing I'm going to do is get a sheet of MDF that's medium density fiber board I want to cut a piece to create a flat surface to do this work on [Music] [Music] I'm going to cover this with wax paper to keep screw off of it I got to get this handle off I've got to pry this board off and actually before I pry this board off I'm going to Mill up the boards to hold this in place and I'll rra it out those boards to accommodate the the tongues on the door [Music] okay I'm going to screw these down but I've got to get this end board off first yeah this keeper was glued down that's unusual in my experience [Music] right [Music] ah a so I was uh getting a little tired of scraping it I tried a little heat with the heat gun but that really didn't seem to do too much uh so what I've done here is I've laid a wet towel on the fabric uh just for 5 minutes yeah I don't the water didn't really seem to want to penetrate this much but uh as you can see uh some of it's ripping up anyway I'm not sure I don't think the water had anything to do with that I don't want to soak it down because it just make a big mess and the other side of these is finished and water would creep down [Applause] [Applause] this is a uh heavy linen fabric uh we call Mattress ticking for I had also cut a second piece of MDF covered with wax paper that will fit in here on top of fabric I just want to it's not absolutely necessary to do this but I want to ensure that this is flat you can use any type of uh water soluble glue okay I'll let that dry overnight well okay uh let's see what we got [Applause] all right this uh this went down nice and flat [Music] [Music] just a quick note about the gloves I've been wearing I anticipate I'd get comments on that just like people used to comment all the time on the bandages I had on my fingers you know it's that there's a high of 22 degrees today uh for my metric fans that's minus5 humidity is 25 30% and the cold shop uh the cold tools uh was just killing the skin on my hand so I as much as I can I'm keeping these gloves on moisturize my hands I'll show you just trying to keep them that way [Applause] [Music] okay uh let this dry overnight on the second door I was I actually did a much better job of cutting the fabric and and and fitting it here this is a little bit off so I'm going to trim up these edges a bit all right these are the boards that go on the inside of the doors uh you know to which the right on the inside center edge I've got to clean them down and reattach them [Applause] Welly this glue just does not want to scrape off uh I tried a heat really seemed to have no effect which was my experience on the Tambour themselves which ultimately didn't matter uh but what I've done here is uh soaked a little vinegar on it and that seems to be working fine okay let's uh let's see what we got oh yeah this is great okay I've got to reinstall these uh strips on the inside of the doors they were originally glued and nailed but I'm going to uh screw them down okay d okay now I will uh get my kit and go to the customer's house to install these okay here I am in the customer's home got a well stock cabinet here uh we took the doors out from the front but they were in pieces I'm not sure if they're going to go back in or not but we're going to find out the first thing I'm going to do is vacuum these tracks uh just to get any dust or anything out of there and now I'll wax these tracks as best I can I really can't get to in the back or anything and I'll also wax uh the doors you know the these uh uh tongues if you will that are that go in the slot so this opening of the cabinet is not a a perfect square the top and bottom are curved so there's a much larger Dimension here in the center than there we were able to pull them out through the center but they were in pieces so let's see if it'll go back now that it's all together [Music] this is great one down now I got to do the other one the same way but I don't have this space available to me I'm not sure how this is going to work oh I just realized this was kind of stuck there something was holding holding it up but obviously it opens all the way and so now I have the room to do this all right now I'm going to go over the uh cabinet with my orange oil beeswax polish so there you have it this is a really nice mid-century modern Rosewood bar cabinet uh made in the 1960s by mobler and uh and it was fine except the fabric had deteriorated on the back of these [Music] Tambour and now it's fine I spent about uh 8 hours on this job that includes pickup and delivery and uh these are the tools I used I think it looks pretty good