Replies

1. 
   forestgirl | Jun 16, 2004 08:51am | #1

   I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that the wood is not oak.  When I first saw your title, I was thinking "mahogany" because there were quite a few pieces in the late '40's and early '50's that were called "blond mahogany."  (Jon Arno, where are you?).  Could the wood in the pictures possibly be ash?  Just doesn't look like oak to me.

   I don't know how you go about researching (in the traditional sense) "old" or "vintage" furniture.  I spent several years buying and selling such stuff, and got most of my larnin' by going to two, three or four auctions each week, many of which were held inside people's houses (on-site auctions) so the furniture could be seen in its original setting.  Those auctions are no longer happening as much as they used to.

   Whether the set is worth saving or not depends on what your dad wants to do with it.  If he just wants a solid dresser, etc., and doesn't care about a couple of blemishes, by all means keep it.  However, it's resale value isn't going to be considerable even after it's fixed up.

   You didn't say anything about what the finish is like.  Will it need to be redone??

   Good luck with fixing the missing pieces.  I'll leave it to someone more experienced to give advice, but I've seen in catalogs molding material that you can use to duplicate the circular decoration and fill in the missing piece. 

   forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
   Another proud member of the  "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>) 

2. 
   Dryrot | Jun 16, 2004 02:13pm | #2

   After looking at your photos... I'm pretty sure it IS white oak. It certainly has a grain pattern like oak anyway. As for repairing and refinishing it. the missing wood piece on the drawer could be patched with a small piece of wood. I'm not sure it would be worth the work involved. I am not sure what type of drawer construction was used, but one possibility is to take the drawer front off and turn it upside down. The missing chip would hardly be noticeable then.

   As for refinishing... It doesn't look like it needs to be completely stripped or sanded down. Probably, just sanding with 220 grit to dull the finish and a coat or two of new clear finish would be all you need. The easiest thing to use is probably something like Minwax Wipe On Poly... It takes more coats than regular polyurethane, but is very easy to use. You can also use Minwax Fast-Drying Polyurethane and thin it as much as 50% to make a wipe on finish too. Of course you can also brush or spray Minwax Fast-Drying Polyurethane as well. I'm not fond of the "plastic look" of gloss poly finishes and usually rub out the final finish with 0000 steel wool using spirits as a lubricant then put on a couple coats of paste wax and buff it to a satin sheen.

   I'd recommend picking up a good book on the subject like:
   The New Wood Finishing Book by Michael Dresdner
   You can get it at the Taunton Books & Videos link above.

   Good luck and have fun...

    --- BRICK

    

   "They say that there is a fine line between genius and insanity. I like to color outside the lines...and then eat the crayons." ~ Me
1. 
   macalex | Jun 16, 2004 03:13pm | #3

   Yes, white oak based on the photos. Maybe chestnut, but unlikely.

   Worth fixing? Maybe depends on how well the unit is made. If it has little intrinsic value, fixing it won't add a cent to it's retail value, but it might give you a tidy (or at least tidier) piece of furniture. If it's well made (dovetailed drawers, solid wood drawer bottoms and back panels, no ply) then fixing it well may be a good investment.

   Patching can be very effective - visit your local second-hand or similar outlets and see if you can pick up a bit of broken or cheap oak furniture with a similar finish. Cut a piece with similar grain and appearance and patch or splice it in. Done well, takes skill.

   Good learning experience whatever you do.

   If the worse comes to the worse, dismantle it and remake it into something else!

3. 
   CajunDan | Jun 16, 2004 03:14pm | #4

   Blonde furniture was very popular in the 50's. Often the wood was bleached, making identification difficult.

   Keeping in mind that some of it is very collectible, you might want to make sure you do not have a valuable piece before you do anything.

   Good luck,

   Dan

4. 
   nikkiwood | Jun 16, 2004 04:48pm | #5

   The only damage that was apparent to me in the photos was the 2-3" piece that has broken off along the to of the drawer front. It doesn't sound to me like you are going for a museum quality restoration, so I think it would be perfectly acceptable to leave it as is -- kind of a battle scar attesting to its age.

   As for refinishing, before you do anything else, I would suggest you take some lacquer thinner and rub it around on an inconspicuous spot. Manufactured furniture of that vintage was often lacquered, and lacquer thinner will melt and reconstitute the original finish. Then you could refinish the piece, using the product of your choice.

5. 
   Tao | Jun 16, 2004 06:25pm | #6

   I was in the furniture manufacturing business for a long time, and from what little I can see, from the style and manufactiring technique, I would say it is promotional grade furniture from the 70's.  Might even be an import, but lots of furniture was made that way in the US at the time, too.  Either way, your dad paid about the right price for it.

   If the wood is truly a blond finish, it will have a white or cream colored stain with a brown (likely burnt umber) glaze on top.  You can tell pretty well if the fresh wood exposed in the chip is darker than the overall finish.  If it is darker, then the finish is "blonded".  If the wood is light or cream colored by itself, you probably have on that just has dye and wiping stain on it.

   There are two approaches I would take to repairing the broken parts:

   Quick and easy is to patch them with wood epoxy, file and sand to shape without disturbing the rest of the finish, and then color to match.

   A little harder is to do the same thing with matching wood, where the visual texture will match better. 

   Either way, it is possible to get a repair that can't easily be detected from arm's length.

   Coloring is the hard part.  I use dry pigments with a number of techniques, including smudging and mixing with very thin lacquer and an artist's brush.  The biggest trick is to use very thin layers of color, MUCH thinner than you would think, and to keep the color confined to the repair area only.  As soon as you get color on top of the old finish, you get a dark border around the repair that you can't hide.

   The finish will definitely be lacquer, and a good bit of the color is in the yellowing of the lacquer.  I would clean with mineral spirits and then oil soap (wipe dry quickly), then maybe freshen up any worn areas on the surface with aerosol touchup lacquer from someone like Merit Industries or Touchup Depot.  They also have touchup colors.

   Michael R.

1. 
   Woodnuts | Jun 16, 2004 07:47pm | #7

   I thought I'd give a bit more information on this set to help identify the year.  If it IS 70's I'm probably not going to put a whole lot of effort into it.

   The wood on the drawer where it is chipped out looks like it's the same color.  It doesn't look darker.  The drawers are machined dovetails, with plywood bottoms.  on the back is printed GAUCHO.  I'm assuming that's the style.  The finish doesn't look TOO bad, it does have some scratches in it. 

   Thanks everyone for the help on this. :)

   TreyYou put your two cents in but only get a penny for your thoughts...Who gets the change?