How to restore traditional antique furniture

The old carpenter's wonderful hand back to spring, the seven steps of restoration of antique furniture

Do you know how many procedures are needed to restore a piece of antique furniture successfully? The masters of the restoration of the wonderful hands, how to retain its old charm at the same time, so that the old furniture new? About these, the wood business network Chen Changwen also from the old furniture restoration "six steps by" said.

1. Disassembly

When it comes to restoring an old piece of furniture, the first thing to do is to carefully observe the structure of the furniture, marking the different parts with serial numbers to facilitate the later installation, in accordance with the assembly of the original furniture in the reverse order of the furniture apart. When disassembling furniture, pay attention to maintain the integrity of the furniture, and remember to damage the furniture paint film and form new damage. Part of the old folk furniture production using special structures and techniques, commonly known as "Jedi work", when disassembled, there may be damage to the structure of the components, so try to maintain the original state, do not disassemble.

2. cleaning

Cleaning antique furniture above the dust, wipe with a wet cloth is a big no-no, because in the face of the components themselves before blindly using a wet cloth to wipe will cause unforeseen damage. So high-power hair dryer blowing is the first choice to remove the floating dust and accumulated soil. For cement paste, asphalt, chemical paint and other modern garbage adhering to the top of the parts, should use physical means to remove, such as fine knife scraping and sanding, as far as possible, do not use chemicals to remove. After deciding not to retain the original finish, use water to wash, rinse while brushing with a special brush, deep buildup of dirt, you can add a little edible alkali modulation of alkaline water. Mortise and tenon and other places such as glue, mud and other stains need to be soaked in hot water to clean. Washed antique furniture need to dry for more than a week, otherwise the expansion of water, the tenon is difficult to recover after dismantling.

3. Lacquer (except for the old workpiece)

Generally, the sandpaper is gently sanded, the harder parts of the use of a knife to scrape. Lacquer can not destroy the original carving part, such as table furniture legs common "incense" line foot, after a long time of natural weathering, very fragile, once ground off, unless the line foot restructuring of a different kind, otherwise it becomes permanently damaged.

4. Carpentry repair

For antique furniture missing part of the repair should be based on the principle of "repair the old as the old", in short, is to find the same quality and color of the old material to repair the integrity. Even in the case of conditions do not allow, but also try to use similar wood texture, color slightly lighter material instead. Such as legs and feet, handrails, corner teeth and other parts, if there is still symmetry of the other half in, it must be copied in accordance with the original. If at the same time missing, it is necessary to match and supplement according to the form and style of the whole piece of furniture.

Before gluing need to pay attention to a point, in planing the glued surface, try to control the grain direction is the same, in order to eliminate the obvious bonding gap, if not, then need to re-create. The most difficult to repair is the part of the carving, the pattern is missing, you need to use the same style of repair, and each period, each place of the craftsmen's techniques are not the same, even if the use of the same material, the discerning eye can see the breaks, not to mention that most of the carved parts of the damage is due to the parts are too slender, once the local decay or collision, only to retain this crippling beauty.

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