Rebuild and Restoration of Hoosier Cabinet

Restoring a Hoosier Cabinet

When we restore and refurbish an old cabinet like this we can get into a wide variety of work. If the cabinet was made after about 1920 or so it could have cheap veneer plywood sides, bottom, and back.

These plywood panels soak up humidity or direct water from rain or other sources. Then the glue lets go between the veneers and the entire piece needs to be replaced. Sometimes you can simply remove the outer layer of the plywood and replace that layer with new veneer. An old iron can help. You use it to heat up the layer of peeling veneer and the heat softens the glue, and bingo, off comes the old veneer.

The new veneer has to be cut with care using a pattern. Then use contact cement to glue down the new veneer. It may sound hard but it is really easy. This Sellers cabinet is really just a variety of Hoosier cabinets but it was a cheap knock off made mostly of poplar wood, a wood which needs to be painted for It rarely looks good stained and varnished.

The best way to get the roll top desk to roll properly is, simply, to work it repeatedly until all the hidden paint crumbs break loose and the track clears enough to let the top move properly.

Don’t be afraid to try it and restore your Hoosier or Sellers Cabinet to its former glory!

Completing the Restoration of a Hoosier Cabinet

The first video we posted up above shows you know how tough this cabinet looked when we began. It was literally falling into parts on the floor. One of our most helpful products for restoring old, broken furniture is epoxy adhesive. Epoxy is tremendously strong, plus, you can add silica thickener to make it stay in the glue joints and not drool all over. Epoxy is a good filler/adhesive and fills up where broken bits of wood have gone missing.

Another trick that gets the job done faster is to use a good commercial paint stripper. Now that might sound like a bit overboard but if you ever try to use the hardware store products, well, you will be there for days with frustration to the moon. We use Benco brand paint stripper, and use rubber gloves, apron, and eye protection. Of course I can’t talk you into anything you just have to decide how many hours you want to spend to strip a cabinet.

Once cleaned up you should sand the cabinet. If you are going to paint your Hoosier Cabinet then prime it first and sand the primer. Then apply two coats of a high quality paint and, voila, you will have discovered a new hobby — or maybe discovered why people bring their furniture to guys like us for refinishing.

Priming a Custom Exterior Door

What’s the Purpose of Primer?

Many viewers may wonder what the purpose is in priming wood. Why bother priming when you can simply paint a couple of coats and be done with it?

Primer helps with several possible painting problems at once.

Primer has plenty of solids in it which block the underlying color, figure, and grain of the wood. If you hate painted wood then this seems like a bad thing. But if your goal in painting is to hide the wood look and gain an even color surface, then primer is your friend. In this case we used white primer but your paint supplier often can tint the primer toward the final paint color thus adding to the primer’s ability to hide the underlying surface (substrate in painter’s professional lingo).

Primer is designed to bond to that substrate better than paint: and excellent bonding is highly important in most paint projects. Who, after all, wants their new paint to be peeling and flaking? Additionally, paint will bond to primer better than to bare wood. The primer provides the bonding both to the underlying surface and it provides a good surface for paint to stick to.

Plus — Primer dries hard enough that it can be sanded to a silky smooth surface prior to painting. This gives the painter a superior clean, smooth surface to apply paint. If you want a professional paint project then take the time to prime the wood, sand the surface, and then apply a couple coats of the best quality paint.

Free advice from Suspender Man™

Couch Frame Repairs

We have many times repaired bracing for the undersides of couches and upholstered chairs. Often these good old pieces were built over a century ago. The techniques, tools, and materials by which springs support was achieved have changed over the decades. In most cases we can rework the underside of your antique spring-seat furniture to give it a long, new, refurbished life.

For some people there is a suspicion that the old wire springs are simply worn out. My experience is that this is rarely true. Typically it is the support for those springs that has given way. In most cases we can repair broken couch and chair frames back to new strength or better. And we can support those old spring seats to get them back to their original performance.

Restoration of furniture and refinishing is what we do here. Let us take a look before you toss that family heirloom.

Custom Mahogany Door Assembly

Custom Doors Built Strong

This big mahogany door is a great example of what can be done in a custom wood shop. We can create truly superior products in our own one-at-a-time way.

Better Wood, Better Construction

For one thing the frames of our doors are doweled together at every joint. This is, we believe, the strongest way to build a door.

Plus, if you are building your own door you can construct it out of better wood species and cuts of wood. We often use quarter sawn African mahogany. Quarter sawn wood is far more dimensionally stable than the plain sawn wood in most factory built doors. Mahogany in itself, is also more likely to lay flat and be stable than other woods.

We also laminate our door rails and panels with two layers of wood to, once again, make sure that the doors never warp or twist. It is kind of a big deal if your new custom door, for which you have paid substantial money, warps after you get it. It’s our job to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Door Thickness and Strength are Important

Other things to keep in mind when ordering a custom door are the thickness and strength of the door and frame.

Thick Doors Make Strong Doors

Once we decided to laminate two layers of wood on every door rail we found we could also build the doors thicker (meaning stronger) than typical factory doors. We suggest building doors to full 2” or 2-1/4” thick. This makes a much heavier, stronger door. It also makes a more beautiful one. All of the details are heavier, thicker, and show the door to have real substance.

Strong Construction is Our Jamb 🙂

The jambs as well should be considered for their safe, strong performance. A typical factory door jamb will be only pine and around ¾” thick plus the stop. I like to build door jambs at least 1-1/2” thick or more plus the stop.

This strength of frame is useful for resisting break-ins. It also assists in keeping a heavy door hanging straight for the long haul. When we see people on TV smashing in a door with a single kick or shoulder block – those are the cheap pine jambs from the big manufacturers splintering open. If the door and jamb are made from solid hardwoods in thicker dimensions, then that break in guy just bounces off. OK, even a great custom door and frame will, likely, not keep out the US Marshals. But any local thieves have at it cause you aint gettin in.

Those Lovely Ball Bearing Hinges

One last thing; heavy doors swing like a dream on ball bearing hinges. For heavy doors we typically use four, 5”, ball bearing hinges. You do not want to cheap out on the hinges. If the hinges are under sized you will have many difficulties keeping that door hanging straight and swinging properly.

What’s the deal with milk paint anyway?

A Look at Milk Paint

Our experience with removing milk paint has been revealing. We bought what was supposed to be a great, potent commercial milk paint removal product. Nevertheless it took around 15 hours to clean up this door.

I try to help our readers discover tricks and training for their own home projects. But I have no good advice for stripping milk paint except: Do Not Waste Your Time!

Milk paint is chemically different from all other paints. It has a chalky look but is often hidden under other types of paint.

I have raised my price for stripping painted doors from $250 each to $1,000 each. Nobody will hire us to strip doors at that price, which is great. We are going to concentrate on other things. Good riddance to the milk paint doors.

Tim’s Hurry Up Pew Stain Job

Staining Techniques

This was a fun little video to make. You can see all the energy and movement required to stain a piece of furniture. To get great stain work you have to be careful and thorough.

There are a variety of techniques to use when applying stains.

Sometimes we brush on the stain and do not back wipe it at all. In that case the brush out of the wood stain must be meticulously even. You cannot leave visible brush marks but you are trying to leave a thin layer of stain laying on the surface of the wood.

Other times we wipe or brush the stain on and then use a rag to rub down the surface. This lightens the surface to a more glowing presentation. Stains can be intermixed to obtain the color you want and they can be thinned to reduce pigment concentration as well. Just thin with whatever the can says to use for that purpose – paint thinner for oil based stains and water for latex stains.

I do not recommend dye stains for amateur use.

Cutting Custom Architectural Moldings

Tools for Making Moldings

When I first bought this molder/planer the idea of making moldings seemed interesting. I had no idea how to get started. But like many skills we have learned we simply needed a little push. When I was asked to make moldings for a local restoration project I simply said ‘yes’ figuring I would just have to learn.

Custom Cutters

It was actually not difficult to get the custom cutters made and to create the moldings. To get the correct cutters for various shapes I traced the ends of the desired molding on a piece of white paper. Then I added measurements and dimensions. My wife makes the drawings into a computer file I can forward to the moldings knife maker. We pay by debit card. The custom knives show up in the mail about ten days later. Custom moldings, voila!

Learning the Quirks of New Tools

If you are thinking about making custom, architectural, moldings there are a number of things you need to figure out, or at least try to figure out. One thing I discovered with my first order is that with these planer/molders in the planer mode the cutter head has three blades. In the molder mode you normally have only one cutter with two counter balances to make the cutter head run smoothly. The point of all this is to note that you will have to feed the materials through the machine at about 1/3 speed to get good surfaces on your wood moldings. If you want to run materials through the machine at full speed then you need to buy three matched blades for that particular molding. For small runs the cost of buying three matched blades is prohibitive.

Staining a Curio Cabinet Darker

Curio Cabinet Quandaries

Staining Furniture Darker

Refinishing furniture is a big part of what we do. With this curio cabinet the owners wanted the wood to be darker. We can almost always make wood darker. Making wood lighter is another situation. Typically, dark wood has been coated with oil stain that is soaked into, not unto, the wood surface. Once saturated with the dark color it is nearly impossible to remove that dark stain. I never guarantee we can lighten a dark piece.

Be Careful with the Glass!

An unrelated danger with refinishing a piece like this is the possibility that you might crack or break one of the several curved glass panels. Those panels will be expensive to replace. You have to figure the cost to replace even a small curved glass panel will be upwards of $500 with larger panels being substantially more. We have recently decided to refuse work on any piece of furniture with curved glass panels or doors.

As with any business there are plenty of land mines to avoid and lessons to learn. We do, however, know we are blessed to work on the many and varied projects people bring us. We refinish and repair a great many pieces every year. In the process I try to instill excellent skills and Christian ethics in my apprentice(s). I want them to be skilled, honest, and wise workers in an old fashioned trade.

Custom Door System for a Greek Revival House Restoration

Restoration Greek Revival Project—Custom Doors

One of the worrisome issues about contracting restoration work is that we may lack the tools or skills to reproduce the details needed. Architectural trims and designs can be complex and often were made with equipment we simply do not have today.

Energy Efficiency

The entry ways for this house are additionally complicated by the need to make them energy efficient with good door thresholds and weather stripping. Those needs forced us to do significant adaptation, melding the new with the old designs.

Restoring and Rebuilding Historic Details

When it comes to matching the historic details we find there is a little room for changes. It is not, however, acceptable to build what we would like to see instead of what the architect and owner have ordered. With restoration projects we are more copy cats then designers. We work with the architect and owner to produce a style-consistent project. We sort of re-invent the project with as many authentic architectural moldings and details as we possibly can, on the equipment we own (which is substantial).

We also invent or substitute style consistent details as needed. For instance, on this entry way the original glass was held in with glazing putty. Glazing putty can do a great job but the look tends to be undesirable on many projects. Hence we created a stop for the glass that is so consistent with the original details that even the best trained architectural moldings expert would never detect that a change has been made. The project is more beautiful while retaining design integrity. If you want to tackle custom moldings there is plenty to learn, but these little paragraphs are all I can write today.

Is it Time to Hire Apprentice #2?

Letting Go of the One-Man-Show

I run a small business here. A tiny business might be a more accurate description. Maybe that is what you do too? I know how it is. Everything is your responsibility. You have to keep materials in stock, pay the bills, straighten out employee errors, supply quality control among other duties every day. So the last thing you (we) need is to cause ourselves extra headaches by bringing a bad choice into our line-up of workers.

In the shop there are only two of us after all. Sure my daughter helps with behind the scenes work like web site and advertising, and everybody helps with moving furniture from time to time. But essentially, there are only two of us in the shop every day. And now I have an application from a second apprentice. This young guy found me by searching ‘apprentices’ on line. So, I suppose since I am talking about apprenticeships every week, more applications will, Lord willing, keep rolling in.

Building an Army … of Two or Three

I have a vision of running a busy shop and training a small army of young apprentices to earn a living doing what I do. But my vision includes more than simply teaching people a trade. I want to teach them to run businesses as Christian leaders and as people of integrity. I want them to understand their lives as a gift from God and as an opportunity to build God’s kingdom. They should leave inspired to build a business for God’s glory and for the good of man. Apprenticeship training ought to be discipleship: distinctively Christian, infused with scripture, and goal-oriented in every respect.

With all that in mind I must figure out how to communicate the vision with a new apprentice. I am convinced that my apprenticeship contract ought to make clear the purpose of the business. It won’t do to hire a person who is not on board with the direction of the work here. Along with that I must develop clarity about what it is that makes a Christian apprenticeship Christian. How is Christian apprenticeship different from just regular apprenticeship? How is apprenticeship different from a job? I am working to understand these issues before I hire on another person.

Timing Your Hiring is Tricky

Then there is the practical matter about when to hire anybody. How do I know if I will have enough work to keep the new worker busy? It seems like the amount of work available increases when help is added—sometimes. It can be confounding. I think I am going to ask my next apprentice to start with only one day a week. That way I can measure his giftedness in relation to this trade. I can evaluate his character without a lot of commitment.

Business Development + Character Development

I know one thing for sure. The first apprentice has to teach the second apprentice. I have already gotten some push-back on that idea but I do not care. It will be good for the first apprentice to learn how to train another person. It is part of the trade. I am training my apprentices to learn how to start their own businesses not just do a trade. Plus it forces the first apprentice to work through the issues about his personal importance to the business. Is he still needed? Who is the top dog now? Was the second apprentice hired to take the place of the first apprentice? Like Cain—sin is at the door but you (and they) must learn to master it. This situation will be good for character development for everybody involved. We can ruminate about this some more another day. The second apprentice, Pitfall or Paradox, the second apprentice, Mission or Malady, Rescue or Reversal…