Restoring a 300-Year-Old Dutch Inlaid Chest of Drawers | Veneer, Turning & Colour Work
An 18th-century Dutch bombé chest of drawers came into the workshop in need of a little love. Split veneers, lifted marquetry and small areas of damage. This video is showing how one can, conserve and consolidate without the need to strip back and sand.
I've called it a conservation rather than a restoration deliberately. The aim wasn't to make it look new, that would destroy most of what makes it interesting. The aim was to stabilise what was failing, lift the grime without lifting the history, and let the piece look its age with dignity.
For anyone new to the channel, I'm Simon Gilboy.
I served a traditional French polishing apprenticeship at the Dartington Trust owned Staverton Joinery, starting in 1987 and finishing in 1991.
In 1994 I set up Gilboys as a furniture restoration workshop, with a bit of help from the Prince's Trust.
It's a long one — a bit over an hour and twenty. Grab a cup of tea. Timestamps are below if you want to skip to a particular part.
Video Index
00:00 Delivery of Antique Dutch Inlay Chest
00:47 Jane arrives to talk about the history of the chest
02:51 Introduction to Gilboys
03:16 A brief history of William III and Dutch Inlay work
05:38 AI interpretation of what the chest may have looked like when it was first made
07:10 Selecting the wood for the moulding repair
10:41 Sharpening a chisel
11:38 Chiseling the chamfer on the newly applied moulding
15:31 Selecting old veneer for the moulding
21:04 Gluing the new, old veneer into place
21:48 Making a burnishing tool for a cabinet scraper/card scraper
22:17 Honing an edge on the card/cabinet scraper
23:41 making a pencil bead moulding for the drawer
26:27 Offering the new pencil bead to the drawer
28:14 Making repair wax by blending repair cubes
31:07 Repairing the holes with beeswax repair cubes
33:40 Using a white spirit to clean away old dirt from the drawer face
35:53 Wood Turning - The new rear bun feet
48:58 Ageing the newly turned feet - 'Distressing the wood'
51:08 Removing the old bracket feet and repairing structural wood
56:49 Using a syringe to repair loose and lifting veneer
57:58 Part two of colouring and ageing the bun feet
1:00:00 Using steel wool and wax polish to add age the finish of the feet
1:02:18 Fitting the new rear feet
1:04:50 Using traditional colouring techniques to disguise old repairs
1:07:21 Syringing hide glue under the veneered top
1:07:58 Repairing the torn veneer on the top with beeswax repair cubes
1:10:27 Repairing the old worn areas of polish using shellac
1:10:52 Faded wood - Applying Gilboys Rose Gold Beeswax Polish using '0000' steel wool
1:12:55 Apply Gilboys Antique Gold to the rest of the chest of drawers
1:13:30 Using Gilboys Wax Drill buffing Brush to polish the surface
1:13:51 Before & After the restoration
1:14:14 Jane returns to collect the chest
1:16:00 The REVEAL and reflection off the past 6 months
1:20:24 The finished chest of drawers
Around 2015 I started developing our own beeswax polish, after years of not being able to find one good enough for the pieces coming through the workshop. That side of things grew, and today Gilboys is a wood and leather care products company, we don't take on restoration work for the public any more.
The restoration you'll see on this channel is work I do purely for the videos, on pieces that interest me. Over the years we've moved three times, and we're now in a purpose-built workshop at Beacon Park in Dartington, solar-powered, plastic-free accredited, and the nicest place I've ever worked.
Along the way I get into a bit of the history of these pieces, where the bombé form comes from, why Dutch cabinetmakers ended up working for the English court after 1688, and how William III's arrival brought a whole workshop tradition across the North Sea with him. If you're new to this kind of furniture, hopefully it's a decent introduction. If you already know your Gerrit Jensen from your Daniel Marot, the practical work should still be worth watching.
Thanks for watching.