Full RESTORATION of this 1950's Jentique Writing Bureau

In today's video I'm going to be working on this old writing bureau and this is by a manufacturer called Gentique and this was a guy called Geoffrey Jenkins and it dates from around the 1950s. This piece of furniture is actually identical to a piece I restored quite a while ago which is my largest viewed video on my channel it's got over half a million views now that one was in a terrible condition this one is in really good condition however my customer wants it completely refinishing she's seen the video I did previously she really liked the finish and it's not going to be exactly the same as that but she wants it refinishing so I'm going to be working on this we'll have a look around it like I say it's not in terrible condition but it still needs a complete refinish so that's what I'm going to do there's only one issue the top drawer is jammed shut there is still stuff in there and something's stopping that drawer from opening so we're going to have to deal with that straight away but we'll go around the piece now have a look at the condition and then get started with the restoration so sit back relax enjoy and thanks for watching. As you can see the finish isn't bad at all it's just dated so it does obscure a lot of the beautiful wood grain you can see it in places you can sort of see the grain underneath there so we want that to pop out some really nice details there the top is pretty much flawless and you may be thinking well why why are you touching this and like I say the customer wants this refinishing it is a dated colour she wants it completely taken back and restoring the finish has failed in a couple of places but nothing major even the handles are in really good condition this is the drawer that's stuck so we'll have to sort that out really nice bun feet let's have a look inside these bureaus don't have the leather blotter on them customer did ask about putting one of those on but they're quite expensive to get here in the UK the the leather and obviously it's quite a bit of work to sort of rebate that into there so I did say it's probably not worth it so we're not going to do that the pigeon holes they're all in reasonable condition hinges aren't terrible either but the wood grain is absolutely beautiful on this you can see it but it just would benefit from a different type of finish so that's what we're going to do I'm going to crack on with this and hopefully even though this is in great condition as it is you will see the difference and you'll love the end result so we'll crack on something's obviously hitting this as I'm trying to pull the drawer it's probably pushed up and it's hitting it but customer says she thinks it's actually a wedding album that's doing it so we'll have to have a look at that but let's take these out oh and I'll show you this it's even got the manufacturer's label on the inside of the drawer a lot of the time these are either ripped off or in poor condition or totally missing so again that's another great sign this has been looked after there's a bit of wear there so look at why that's happening yeah overall great condition to get to that drawer I'm going to have to take the back off to see if I can fish out what's stopping the drawer from from failing to open so that's what we'll do this is nailed in unfortunately seems a bit brutal this but it's difficult with nails to get it out right okay I actually thought I'd have better access than this I can see there's like a pink you can't really see there there's like a pink photo album so I need to try and move that I think my ring's getting caught in it take that off oh this is this is a bit of a pain because it won't move I might need to take these blocks off all right I've got a book photo album I won't show you that because it's private and this album is wedged right against it so even this isn't coming out there we go hey that was wedged tip to everyone don't overstuff your drawers because that's what you need to do to get them out just put these little glue blocks back in now managed to clean them up right now the drawer's sorted just need to take this off now because I want to get to the pigeon holes inside didn't really need all those nails in it and it was glued as well so I'm gonna have to clean all the uh the bits of wood and glue off it now right right next thing to do is get this out now these are often fixed in different ways and I can see from this one I don't know you can see that there's a nail there and one on the opposite side so I just need to get these nails out now so just a hacksaw blade I'll clean all this up in a second let's not do this there's one there's two daisy come on time for work come on pup come on let's go wait a minute it's me you ready hello sit down sit down sit a minute that's very cute there you go if you watched my last video you'll have heard me say that it's not that she's not very well she's got a chronic illness which sounds really dramatic but it's not she's got medication now and she's getting much better feeling a lot better her skin's a lot better she's got a little problem with her eyes at the minute but we've got some drops for that but yeah she's on the road to recovery and yeah hey she's a good girl right on to work daisy I know this comes off quite well with the stripper and I'll be using the stripper on the detailed parts anyway so I think I'm just going to strip this with a paint stripper this doesn't appear to have reacted as well as I thought it would so I think it might even be a lacquer on the top right we're getting there now I certainly don't think this is shellac I think it's lacquer because it only comes off a lot easier in this shellac these sections here and on the front and the sides these are all solid wood no veneer I'm going to deal with this separately and I think I may take that off but for these braces these cross braces I'm just going to use sander to get this finish off it's just a bit quicker and a bit and a bit less messy than stripping this is probably why I'll use paint stripper on this section rather than a scraper because watch it's coming off but you can see how much scraping I'm gonna have to do just for that so I'll probably do this with paint stripper right I was going I was going to take this base off to work on it separately while I had paint stripper working on the rest of the piece and it's screwed there there there and there and then there's two on each side at the back however this screw just will not budge at all and if I needed to take it off to repair it or anything like that then obviously I'd persevere but I was only doing it so it was easier for me so I'm going to leave this on I don't need to take it off I'll just have to remove the finish with it in in place no big deal I just want to share with you a little project that I did this is my new workbench that I made just from scrap pieces of wood that I had lying around I thought it was about time I had a little bit of a better workbench so I'll give you a little look at it it's not pretty it's a bit like Frankenstein's workbench but like I say it was just out of all bits of scrap wood that I had lying around some of it was in the garden I've had to plane it all and sand it all but the top is just some OSB board I've lasered some logos into it and it's had about five coats of polyurethane varnish just to try and protect it a little bit and I've got that so please like and subscribe try and keep it as nice as I can for as long as I can but yeah pleased with this little afternoon's project I've noticed this piece is missing which has explained a bit of a mystery because when I was just clearing up a little bit before I found a chunk of wood now normally if there's any bits of debris on the floor I'll just vacuum them up but I thought well that looks a bit weird I don't remember I don't know where that's come from and it's there so I did have a quick look and I couldn't see anything but obviously didn't look hard enough so that piece looks to be from there so I just need to glue that back in now okay these have got no finish on them it's just stain I can sand that off so I'm going to do a bit of sanding on this a bit of sanding on these legs and then come back at it with the paint stripper it might sound a bit of an odd way to do it but I'm just having a break from the paint just let me get on with my work please go on you want to entertain yourself with your cork never mind he's staring at the camera oh daisy what what do you want get your cork get your cork go get it a pest oh you're a pest aren't you hey you little pest you doing your little meerkat honestly these tablets are great but she's got far more energy which doesn't help me oh daisy you don't have to make me laugh don't chew it up please thank you never mind right let's leave that to do its thing it's all stripped now from the old finish and just to give you an idea I think this took a full day in total over the last couple of days so still a few things to do on this yeah I need to neutralize it all so I'm going to wipe it all down I want to raise the gray need to sand it so still quite a bit to do I've just got to go to the drawers now the drawers and the front and the pigeonholes so not much to do this finish on this one is really different to the one I did previously now I know the old finish on the other one was probably in a worse state but I think I don't think this is shellac I think it's lacquer I might have already said that but when I stripped the other drawers as soon as I put the stripper on whereas this is taking quite a bit more effort to get the finish off right I'll just take these handles off now right this one's all stripped all the handles are stripped it's been neutralized I've put the handles back on for now because when I took them off because they've been glued there's a little bit of tear out underneath so if you put them back in the same place it doesn't really matter because they sit flush so that's what I've done and I'll do that on each of them I am going to do something with these later but I'll just take them off and do it as and when I need so they're back on for now two more drawers to do the pigeonholes and the drop down lid right it's been drying out this so I'm just going to add a bit of cling film see if this helps at all right see if this has helped any possibly yeah it's still dried out look see how it's dragging everything is stripped now and I have gone over it with methylated spirit or denatured alcohol but because it's an open grain this I want to just double check there's no stripper left on this I'm just going to use some water and some soap or degreaser a little bit that's what the manufacturer recommends for this stripper the pigeonholes are a bit of a pain in the backside because you can't get a scraper in there as in a carbide scraper it's really thin veneer so I don't want to sand it so you've got to strip it but there's all these different sides that you have to apply stripper weight take it off if you do it all in one go it ends up dripping all over the place and drying out so it's a bit of a pain but it'll be worth it in the end right finally finished still need sanding but all the finish is off now it's not ready for dinner yet no not yet 10 minutes okay don't be cheeky right just need to change the paper for this top bit that was 120 this is 240 so it doesn't need much of a sand because this is a veneered top that's all that needs that work to treat that right about four hours of sanding later maybe even longer it's had a full sanding with 120 grit and a full sanding with 240 grit it's all done finally every little nook and cranny has been done I just need to get rid of all the dust now and then on to the stain as you can see in the background the leaves are starting to fall and so is the temperature here in the UK this time of year in my workshop can be pretty cold and trying to keep myself comfortably warm can be a bit of a challenge with this in mind I'm really excited to tell you about the sponsor of this video Dreo. Dreo is the top fan and heater brand in the US and this is one of their latest heaters in the lineup and this is the that's nice that's a very fancy heater wow the first thing I noticed when I unwrapped this was just how good looking it is my intention was to use this in my workshop however it might be a bit nice for that so I may well use it in the house just to cut back on the fuel bills over this yeah really nice looking and made from really high quality materials one of the fantastic things about this is I've got another fan heater in here and when you turn it on it takes a couple of minutes to get warm this as soon as you turn it on warm within two seconds in fact it's getting hot now so straight away this starts to heat up which is completely different than any other fan heater I've had before that's really that's really warm that that's so nice because it's cold in here right I'll do a little test now see how good that is turn that off so I've got my thermostat that I have in my workshop and at the moment that's telling me it is 46 degrees Fahrenheit so let's have a go very very scientific this as you can see nailing a piece of polystyrene and I can actually turn it on with the remote control which I'll show you in a minute I can see this going up this has been running out for about 20 seconds right that has made a difference I'll just show you this not going to run it forever hopefully you can see that that's almost 60 degrees Fahrenheit now and honestly that honestly that was in probably 30 seconds something like that brilliant one of the other noticeable features about this heater is how quiet it is so I'm just going to stay quiet for one second which I know is difficult for me that's what it's like in the workshop at the moment very quiet let's turn it on and that's the fan cooling down so quiet I'll go through some of the functions so turn it on as you can see that's h5 so that's the highest power that's 1500 watt h4 is 1300 watt 1100 watt 900 watt and 700 watt so you can have it on a low power this is the mode button and this is the eco mode this is brilliant so you can set it to the desired temperature you want the room to be it will heat the room until it gets to that temperature and shut off and then maintain the temperature and then you've got fan so that's a cool fan so you can use it for cooling and three different speeds of fan it has a timer function so it shuts down after that length of time this is one of the safety features you can hold both for three seconds and that has a child lock so no inquisitive little hands can start messing about with this really really simple the heater also has an oscillating function it sweeps around like that and heats the room and that's adjustable as well you just press that and then you can alter it with the plus and minus buttons just turn that off now and as you can see there's a 30 second cool down one of the other key things to this is the amount of safety features it has it has a cool touch housing so this doesn't get too hot you've seen the child lock it has a tip over warning and it shuts off it has an overheat protection on it and it is completely flame retardant so i'll the only thing really i can test because i don't want to set this on fire is i'll do the tip over protection and see if that works so let's turn it on right and we'll tip it over good luck there you go and that shut down so that definitely works it also comes with a convenient little remote and this is a fully functioning remote i think the only thing it doesn't do is do the child lock but i'm not 100% on that so yeah fully functional and saves you getting out of your chair one thing to mention about this solaris 718 heater is that this is a 120 volt model for the u.s market predominantly i can run it here but you do need to run it with a step down converter because our electrical system in the uk is 240 volts in the us you don't need anything like that this is perfect for you this solaris 718 if you want to buy one of these if you're interested in a space heater with all these features then i'll leave a link and a discount code in my description thanks for watching this is in the color walnut right i've done all the walnut stain pretty much now there's only another little bit i need to do but i need to do this first i'm going to jazz it up a little bit now with some rosewood stain now what i'm doing is i'm going to do the pigeonholes in that and i'm going to do something else in a second on the inside and then i'll show you what i'm going to do on the outside just to bring it all together just to add a bit more interest rather than it all being a flat color i suggested this to the customer she thought it was a great idea i've done things like this before and i really like it so hopefully you do too and that's what we'll do right what i'll do because i don't want the stain to dry on the side too quickly because sometimes it'll leave like a tide mark so i'm going to do the the whole piece first okay let's do the rest of that now for the top coat i'm going to use gill boys hard wax oil and if you fancy using some of this product i'll leave a discount link in my description if you click that it'll take you straight over to the website you don't need to add any product code you just get yourself a discount on any purchase on their site so this is really good stuff this is a new tin i've already got some in this jar so i'm going to apply that you can apply it with a brush a roller or a cloth i've not to use one of these foam things before so the idea is you don't put too much on that's already soaking into the wood that look at that grain beautiful this is just one coat of the hard wax oil and that's been wiped back just look at that i might give it another coat i probably will actually once it's completely dry but that's just beautiful love it just need to do the legs now these aren't coming up as i'd hoped can you see that bit there i remember on the last bureau i did for this they came up this lovely copper color like a rose gold color so look like they were either copper plated or an antique brass plating with quite a lot of copper in it but can you see there it's not got that finish on it this part and i've noticed that this also hasn't got the copper so they're not going to look as good as i thought they would do just by cleaning them up and removing this this old finish off them i'll see how they look and then we'll go from there but i might i might have to color these either paint them or gild them or something but we'll see right i've cleaned these up and as you can see a lot of the plating is off these there's only really that that arm that's got some of the plating on it so they just look a bit odd i would have liked to have kept them original if it was all that lovely copper but that's not the case so i'm going to spray these there we go i'm not going to glue that in just in case she wants to take it out but it's quite nice that that's sticking out a little bit there but i'm going to leave that because that really helped me out when i wanted to remove this back so i'm going to leave that as it is we're coming to the end of the video now so i'd just like to say a massive thank you for all your continued support if you'd like to support me and daisy and our channel then all the links are in the description i know it's been another long one i appreciate you sticking with it and as always thanks for watching and we'll see you on the next one