Rescued this dresser from the dumpster. All that was left were the sides and top. As you can see I have rebuilt it to meet my needs but now I am stuck at old finish meets new raw wood. Any ideas on how I can blend the two together? I would prefer not to go too dark or have to completely strip the older part down. Appreciate any advice.
Thanks
Clem
Replies
Let's try this again and see if I can post a picture this time-sorry new here.
Clem,
Nice piece ! Is the top a veneer?...it appear to be from that time frame..
Thanks BG, I'm happy with the results so far. I do think it would have been easier to build it from scratch rather than work within th econfines of the old case but I hate to see anything go to waste. Thankfully the top is solid because I gouged it trying to plane it smooth. Hand planing sounds so easy but ....
Clem
We have a saying in the software business, don't fix it, feature it. Don't spend a lot of effort trying to hide the difference, accentuate the contrast. Especially if the old and the new are different woods.
Interesting! I'll run that thought by the boss(wife). Thanks for your reply!
Clem
Clem,
Can't help you with your finishing question beyond trial and error, but is there 5 separate drawers at the top? If they are, cool!
Don
Don,
Yes there are 5 drawers on top that will fit CDs, the middle 3 will fit DVDs( before I knew you could buy them in the same size cases as CDs) and the bottom 2 are for VCR tapes, one more row and I would have had room for my old 8 tracs :).
Clem
Personally I would strip the old and refinish the entire thing. If it's just the sides and the top... and you've planned the top... it shouldn't be all that much work. An advantage of going this route would be that you wouldn't have to be constrained by having to pick a finish material that will be compatible with the existing old finish. You could refinish the entire thing with whatever suits your fancy.
Regards,
Kevin
"Rather fail with honor than succeed by fraud" - Sophocles.
Clem,
I'm with Kevin, I'd strip and refinish the piece. Assuming your mixing woods, you may want to then do a wash coat of stain, seal it with shellac and then lacquer. (guess which finish procedure I just tried and it came out great....lol). The finish procedure can be done (including rub out and wax) in about 2-3 days time.
Clem,
I'd also remove the old finish first. Once stripped, the older sections will have color from age and the finish. The first step is to color the new work to resemble the color in the stripped parts. Coloring the new wood to look like the stripped wood will blend old & new together and look original.
I had a similar project I finished this way. It started as a large credenza. One side was cut off then the moldings were used to decorate it. Most of the parts were original but the top was new. I dyed the top to give the look of the older wood and then stained the entire piece. Here's the "before" and "after."
Stripped
Final - New Top
To get the new top to match the older wood, I first dyed it a cool brown (greenish). Then I stained the whole thing, old and new, which evened out the color well.
Paul
Paul,
I do not have any experience dyeing anything so please bear with my ignorance. What do you mean by a cool brown and where is the best place to get the dye. I have stained projects before but always stayed to the basics. I appreciate the advice.
PS Your project turned out nice
Tom
Thanks Clem. "Cool" colors are green and blue tones. Warm colors have red tones (or yellow). There's a good article on color theory at this link - Color Theory. I often use a "finisher's" color wheel and an artists color wheel when mixing dyes and stains. The artists wheel covers primary colors (red, green, blue) and the finishers color wheel covers earth tones (umber, sienna, etc.) usually used in wood finishing.
When you dye oak, it colors the wood nicely except for the pores. Using a wiping stain after the dye adds more color and takes care of the pores at the same time. The greenish tone from the dye shows through the stain once the finish is applied giving the oak the aged look.
The dye I used on the podium top was a mixture of raw umber and burnt umber. Raw umber is greenish (cool) and burnt umber is a warm brown (chocolate). I thinned the dye quite a bit so the color wasn't very dark. Here's a picture of two panels getting the same finish; the one on the right is dyed with the cool brown dye and the one on the left was dyed & then stained.
View ImageDyed on Right; Dyed & Stained on Left
A good source for dyes and tech assist is Homestead Finishing (.com) run by Jeff Jewitt. Jeff has an article here on FWW for an Arts & Crafts finish that uses the same approach (dye & stain). The article has some good info that goes to your project.
Paul
Paul,
Thanks for the info. I found the link you posted for Jeff's instructions for Arts and Crafts finish. After stripping some of the dresser it appears to be made of white oak and unfortuatly I rebuilt the front with red oak. Any potential problems you can for se or is it just going to be trial and error? Thanks again for the info. Everybody on the sight has been great.
Tom
Clem,
I don't see any problems with the white oak/red oak mix. Dying the red oak will help a lot to match up the new and old wood. Can you post a picture of the stripped wood? That'll help decide which color range to start with.
There's usually some trial & error. Use sraps of the wood to work on the color/thinning ratio.
Paul
I saw an article on refinishing dressers from the dumpster awhile back if your interested I can try to dig that up for you. This guy suggested (and it really looked good) facing part of the new parts with leather (or vinyl). I think he just did the drawer fronts and finished the rest as wood.
Tony
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