What is Best to Use on Antique Furniture?

[Casey]

Carvings: Thin the wax with paint thinner, use a toothbrush to apply, use a natural bristle shoe brush to buff, it's miraculous!
Casey

[Al F. Furnituremaker]

Yep, Casey is right. Forgot to mention the thinning part.

[phil]

Thank You , that makes sense.
Phil

[smithrolline]

I really love to keep antique furniture, this post shared lots of information to keep antiques. Thank you for this thread.

[phil]

my dad worked for an old englishman back in the 50's when he was 20. The guy made reproduction english furniture and also did custom work and repairs and my dad apprenticed under him. when people came into his store asking what to refurbish antiques with he sold them a bottle of "furniture restorer" its an old recipie that I have seen on other documents too.
1 part linseed oil, 1 part turpentine, 1 part vinegar.

the vinegar doesn't dissolve, dont worry. it's in there for cleaning. just shake as you dispense. rub it on, then dry down nicely.

If it has a shell coating like shellac or lacquer it wont dissolve it , just don't let it dwell forever. it cant' penetrate that stuff so it wipes off. It fills any voids, hides the white scratches. problems with blush it may not fix , that's where water gets into or under the finish and turns cloudy white. sometimes from humid storage. It wont remove natural pebbling or crazing and often you want o retain that. It will make the piece look better without stripping or refinishing. the drydown removes any material sitting on top of the laquered or shellacked areas since it isn't porous.

linseed oil and turps is a finish. If you keep applying it to a bare wood surface it will produce a lovely finish all on it's own. dont think that because it has the name oil in it that it wont dry. If you want proof look around the cap of your linseed oil bottle. things like engine oil libricating oils do not dry and are not for furniture. you wont see auto oil dry under the cap for example. or mineral oil.

later if you want to strip a piece it wont prevent that or interfere with adhesion. I dont use a lot of miracle solutions but there are other products people like. a lot of the corporations protect their secret recipes. sometimes you can get some ideas what is in it by examining the MSDS sheets which the sellers need to make available by law. They may not need to list silicone. I dont think it's poisonous. some may contain varnish, what's varnish? a mixture of polyurethane and other ingredients?

maybe you can wax things and remove the wax if refinishing. I dont think it will cause a lot of issues but I'd consider that something you put on top of a finish not a finish in itself since wax never hardens. If we are talking about wax is it carnuba wax or beeswax or paraffin wax? I usually just use paraffin wax on things like drawer guides.

I feel better if I know what a product is so I try to avoid the trade secret type formulas. I use stains very sparingly. If I use them I just mix a tad of it in my linseed oil and turps. I never add that to the first coat because if the piece is not sealed the cracks will attract the stain. sometimes I use lacquer toners but usually only if they were used on the original piece and I'm stripping it. any colorant put on top of the finish hides the wood so you see less figure and ribbon.
some antiques particularily quartersawn oak have an ammonia fumed finish, try to retain that if you can. while re-fuming is possible it isnt' common. some think it's a stain. also dies are different than stains. It is possible to spray them to distribue them rather than wiping to get more even coverage. dying wood isnt' the same as a pigment applied overtop as it enters the wood. It can darken wood without hiding the ribbon and grain detail and may enhance some detail. I think this is quite dependent on the wood type and I'd experiment and tread cautiously before applying things that soak into he wood and color it. I think sometimes it is appropriate but in refinishing maybe not. something to experiment and learn more about. Potassium permanganate is another thing to learn more about as it relates. I think my dad used to use it on quality mahogany with a french polish overtop and I have some nice pieces done with that but it's something I'd learn more about before delving in.

Ive often hear of people using substances like Gojo hand cleaner or different formulas of furniture finishes and also sprays like pledge. I think pledge has silicone but I cant' prove that. no doubt people use all sorts of proprietary things and make things look better then report how good they are. usually I want my restorations to look old not all new and shiny. If you spray laquer in a booth then you have a dust free environment , I dont have a booth so what I like to do is a rub down with very fine steel wool wet with wool lube from Mohawk. I find that tones down the unnatural shininess and knocks some of the pips off from dust. some use burlap and pumice.

another thing Id like to discuss is grain filling. Ive noticed that in some of the projects I did I wanted to fill the rain with lacquer and found it difficult Id end up with flat spots that were filled and shiny and others where the grain was not really filled. some just allow the wood to have a natural feel but if you want o go more towards a pianno finish there are techniques to fill the grain before you start refinishing. some stuff they put on and sort of scrape with a credit card. Its something I'd like to learn more about as it affects the final finish. I was recemntly watching a video on french polishing and he used pumice and scrubbed it and the idea was the pumice and the wood dust this created was driven into pores and filled the voids in the grain. I have a can of grain filler, I could try to experiment with it.

an obvious but kind of fun thing to do is to go around your home and really feel different antiques. some feel like glass , and some you will feel the grain some may feel different due to age and shrinkage of the wood and the finish it has. sometimes the finish gets pebbled. If the goal is to produce a piece with a natural looking finish that appears to have been very well cared for then how it feels is important too and should really be authentic. sometimes your fingers notice things you dont really see if you let them. a piano finish isn't appropriate for every antique so perhaps though could be put into how a piece should feel as well as how it looks , of course the two relate.