Minor Antique Furniture Restoration
By Silas Finch
A piece of antique furniture that shows up in Grandma’s attic or at the flea market will inevitably be in need of cleaning. Just because the surface of the table you inherited is stained, scratched, or covered with rings does not mean you are in for a brutal refinishing.
It is often possible to bring a wooden surface back to life with a fairly simple set of processes. Below are relatively easy ways to remove water or ink stains and return faded or dirty wooden furniture to its original beautiful condition.
General Cleaning: What you should not do is drench the surface of your antique with water. Excessive amounts of water can have a number of depilatory effects, it can stain unprotected wood and cause swelling that can crack joints.
The first thing you should do is to create what is called a reviver. Mix one part of linseed oil with four parts mineral spirits. Mineral spirit is a fancy word for the primary ingredient in most paint thinners but can be purchased alone.
Be extremely careful when handling mineral spirits, it is severely irritating to the eyes or skin and very dangerous, even deadly if consumed.
Using a clean soft cloth rag wipe the entire surface of the piece. Along with any dirt the mixture will remove any residual wax polish but otherwise leave the furniture unaffected. You should turn the rag throughout the process to keep as clean a surface against the wood as possible.
When cleaning a painted wooden surface use a clean rag and warm soapy water. Wipe the piece using long slow strokes that follow the grain of the wood. Once the furniture has been cleaned wipe it down again with a new rag dipped in fresh, clean water. Using yet another clean rag dry the piece thoroughly.
Removing Stains: The two most common stains found on antique tables are water and ink stains. Fortunately both are fairly easy to remove. The water stains are white blemishes usually circular in shape left by careless drinkers. Spilled alcohol or similar materials will also leaves marks that closely resemble water stains.
Luckily these types of stains are merely very shallow mars on the surface of the varnish and can be rubbed out. Use a very small amount of metal polish on a clean rag to rub away the spoiled varnish. If you take you time and watch your progress closely you can remove the stain without removing all of the varnish. Apply a polish to the affected area.
If the water stains are so bad that they have penetrated below the varnish it will leave very dark stains that will require a complete stripping and possibly a bleaching treatment as well.
If your new antique desk has what you believe to be ink stains, the process is a little more complicated. First try the process described above for water stains. If the ink hasn’t reached below the varnish to ruin the finish, metal polish should melt the varnish layers and allow the stain to be removed.
If this fails a small amount of rubbing alcohol applied only to the stained area may well remove it as well. Be sure to use as little alcohol as possible as it will dissolve most varieties of wood polish.
In cases were the ink has stained more than the varnish and reached the wood it can still be removed with resorting to a complete refinishing. A tiny amount of bleach applied to the stain with a small painter’s or toothbrush will almost surely get the stain out.
If you bleach the wood be very careful to only use as much as you need because you will need to re-stain the area cleaned. The smaller the area you have to work on the less noticeable any variations in color will be. After the new stain has dried polish the area.
Silas Finch is a free-lance writer on a variety of arts and historic topics. He can be reached at Content and Solutions.com.