furniture

Major 8 Radiogram Repair

We have in our possession a Major 8 radiogram which was originally purchased by my in-laws around 1960s. It hasn't been used for years and kept largely for sentimental reasons. When I first saw it a very modern (for its day) stereo cassette player had been patched in not sure how but it worked. I have not been able to find any information online about this or any other radiogram. I did find a website that that does repairs Resurrection Radiograms. They hadn't heard of a Major 8 either. They did however suggest that it could be a rebranded Astor 8. I visited another website bakeliteradio it lists the Astor brand but doesn't really help my cause. The radiogram is now part of history as cassette players, 8 track cartridges and compact disks. The radio still works but it only has AM as this unit predates FM radio and there is little call for short wave theses days. So there it sits the AM band works but doesn't cover the full bandwidth that is available today. I can tune in some stations the sound is a bit crackly befitting such an on old radio. Sadly the turntable is no longer functional too hared to fix. The cabinet is made from veneered plywood which needed repair. That however is a story for another post. Major 8 RadiogramMajor 8 tuning on light

By |August 23rd, 2021|Categories: Renovating, Woodworking|Tags: |0 Comments
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A Family Restoration – Kitchen Table

This is a family restoration the piece in question belonged to my wife's grandmother. I twas most likely a dressing table or a washstand. There is evidence on the top that something was screwed to it in the past. Grandma used it as a kitchen table (which is what I will refer to it as) and bench which means the top took a beating.  Other than that the piece was in reasonably good condition. There were no manufacturer's marks which makes dating the piece difficult. Im no expert but it looks Edwardian to me  so it must be over 100 years old. Kitchen table The kitchen table was finished with shellac so I washed it with methylated spirits and steel wool. The top was the most damaged and I used a cabinet scraper to remove most os the finish. This exposed the old screw holes so I ended up sandins the whole top. Sanding removed some water damage but left the timber looking brand new. I didn't touch the edges other than a light sand. I needed to fill some old screw holes and decided to use wooden plugs. The timber was difficult to identify. In the end I used some red pine as the  grain and colour were close to the original. After more sanding I stained the top with a mahogany stain to bring it closer to the rest of the kitchen table. I applied several coats of shellac to the top and then followed up with three coats to the entire piece. I sanded lightly between coats leaving the final coat. After a week or so I applied beeswax which brought a nice finish. The only other challenge were two of [...]

By |March 18th, 2018|Categories: Furniture, Renovating|Tags: |0 Comments
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Picture This C — Pegs and ‘Tails

I follow this blog and love the insights into period furniture. This a mistake by Chippendale no less. “All craftsmen make blunders, but what separates the truly great ones is the ability to redress their mistakes.” Regular reader, Burbidge, emailed me about an aspect of the mahogany linen press in figure 1. It conforms closely to the drawing in Thomas Chippendale’s Cabinet Maker’s Director and was almost certainly made by him: The bracket […] via Picture This C — Pegs and 'Tails

By |December 7th, 2016|Categories: Furniture, News|Tags: |0 Comments
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Baby Chair Repair – Part 3

This is the final part of the baby chair repair. Part 1 focussed on dismantling and stripping the paint off the baby chair. Part 2  was concerned with repairing the dismantled parts. This last part is about sanding finishing and assembly. Sanding is a boring but necessary part of any project. Many YouTube woodworking videos skip over sanding in fear of boring their audience. The baby chair had lots of sanding. I completed the finishing process using cabinet scrapers which always yields great results. I brushed on a water based varnish allowing a day between coats. A light sand between coats knocked the bumps off. I waited for a week to before final assembly so that the finish would harden. I recall reading about this in a Woodsmith magazine a long time ago. The metal parts including the wheels were also caked with years of paint. Paint stripper and a wire brush cleaned up these parts. I finished the metal parts with a two part rust inhibiting paint. A black satin finish sets the metal work off nicely. As with the previous parts there is a compilation courtesy of Animoto.

By |December 1st, 2015|Categories: Furniture, Woodworking|Tags: , |0 Comments
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Baby Chair Repair – Part 2

Following on from part one of this series some of the cleaned up parts required repairing. The baby chairs is constructed from what I think is Tasmanian oak. There wasn't much damage one tenon had broken off a rail. The other parts that are have worn are near the cast iron wheels. I was able to turn a custom dowel to replace the missing tenon. I had thought the tenon was integral to the stretcher so it required drilling to get the bits and pieces out. I even used carving chisels to clean up the stretcher. In the end the repair was successful. The pieces close to the cast iron wheels had splinters missing making the area for the axle holes  weakened. I uses a straight cutting router bit and a router table. I was able to carefully remove the damaged parts. I had some old pieces of Tasmanian Oak on hand that allowed me to make small pieces to replace the damaged parts. The new wood was a good match for the original timber on the baby chair. The other major damage to the baby chair was the tray. The original was a piece of plywood which had become delaminated overtime. I did entertain gluing the original plywood back together. In the end I  made  a new tray from some old plywood I had kept from dismantling old furniture. As with the previous part of this baby chair repair I have a compilation from Animoto.  

By |November 30th, 2015|Categories: Furniture, Renovating, Woodworking|Tags: , |0 Comments
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Baby Chair Repair – Part 1

We inherited this baby chair when our children were small. It has been sitting around the shed for many years being moved everytime we had a cleanup.Like many older pieces of wooden furniture it has been renovated many times. The baby chair was covered in several layers of paint besides the original varnish finish. I don't know much about its provenance other than it being in one family for  a long time. I did find a manufacturer's label on it from T.H.Brown and Sons. A quick search on Google revealed that  T.H. Brownand sons were a well know Adelaide (South Australia) furniture maker founded in about 1910. They were important enough to be included in the SA Design Museum. Their products were available Australia wide through department stores.I think the baby chair dates from the 1940s or 50s. I haven't made a video of the process however I took a series of photographs and assembled them in Animoto. This is part one of the process stripping the paint pulling it apart and stripping the years of paint of the frame.  

By |November 30th, 2015|Categories: Furniture, Renovating|Tags: , |2 Comments
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