good work! I am SO happy, that the buyer didn't want you to take off the old surface/varnish. These old objects should be allowed to keep all their story and layers :)
Impressive work. A bit of constructive feedback, I would reduce the volume of the background music a lot or remove entirely for future videos. It made it hard to hear what you were saying.
A lot of times with antique pieces that old look so dark is from dirt/grime/smoke/soot that has built up over years and years and often being absorbed by the finishes used at the time. Varnishing, Shellac, and Waxes were most common for what would be considered antique furniture these days and those really darkened and discolored with age. The use of stains at the time wasn't super common and when it was done it was typically made by the woodworker by doing things like soaking tobacco in hash chemicals, or tea, and sometimes rusted iron for pigments. For your next piece I would highly encourage you to try something out. Figure out what the original (or current) finish is. You can test for Shellac pretty easily by using a cotton ball and some mineral spirits or denatured alcohol on an inconspicuous surface. If the finish comes off leaving a bare dull wood look then you have Shellac. If that is the case then all you really need is the mineral spirits of alcohol and some #0000 steel wool to lightly bring it back to bare wood. From there you can use some light soap and water (don't soak) or a good mild wood cleaner, then patch any damage. The same steps will work to test for lacquer, just use lacquer thinner instead. If neither worked then it is probably a varnish in which case you would need a chemical stripper and some scrapping. Slow and steady here. The idea with all of these would be to do as little sanding as possible to bring back the surface of the wood and only lightly sand around areas that were patched and as a light prep to refinish. As for choosing a finish, you can either do what was on there before since you now know, or a good wax does well. I think if you tried a stripping and cleaning rather than a sanding and staining you would be very surprised by how it turns out and are likely getting it closer to how it was originally made without removing much/if any of the wood itself. Hopefully I'm not coming off like a know-it-all jerk telling you how to do your hobby, genuinely not my intention. Just wanted to pass along some things I have learned from research and having made more than a few errors over the years. I can say with some certainty though that I have never seen a modern stain job that ends up looking as good as the natural wood, especially the old stuff :) Keep it up and I am looking forward to your future videos (I promise I won't butt in without being asked like this on the next ones).
I love this. No need to apologize, I greatly appreciate the input. I'll look into doing something different from sanding and staining like so with one of my next projects. I recently went garage sailing and picked up a few pieces😉 Thank you.
Haha no it's just from the TH-cam audio library. I use my music in my shorts. Don't have much released yet, just stuff I made years ago for background music. I've been working on a 10 song album for a while now that I'm hoping to put out this year.
good work! I am SO happy, that the buyer didn't want you to take off the old surface/varnish. These old objects should be allowed to keep all their story and layers :)
Impressive work. A bit of constructive feedback, I would reduce the volume of the background music a lot or remove entirely for future videos. It made it hard to hear what you were saying.
I even turned it down quite a bit, I'll go in and edit it again but yes I've gotten that a lot so noted. Thanks
A lot of times with antique pieces that old look so dark is from dirt/grime/smoke/soot that has built up over years and years and often being absorbed by the finishes used at the time. Varnishing, Shellac, and Waxes were most common for what would be considered antique furniture these days and those really darkened and discolored with age.
The use of stains at the time wasn't super common and when it was done it was typically made by the woodworker by doing things like soaking tobacco in hash chemicals, or tea, and sometimes rusted iron for pigments.
For your next piece I would highly encourage you to try something out. Figure out what the original (or current) finish is. You can test for Shellac pretty easily by using a cotton ball and some mineral spirits or denatured alcohol on an inconspicuous surface. If the finish comes off leaving a bare dull wood look then you have Shellac. If that is the case then all you really need is the mineral spirits of alcohol and some #0000 steel wool to lightly bring it back to bare wood. From there you can use some light soap and water (don't soak) or a good mild wood cleaner, then patch any damage.
The same steps will work to test for lacquer, just use lacquer thinner instead.
If neither worked then it is probably a varnish in which case you would need a chemical stripper and some scrapping. Slow and steady here.
The idea with all of these would be to do as little sanding as possible to bring back the surface of the wood and only lightly sand around areas that were patched and as a light prep to refinish. As for choosing a finish, you can either do what was on there before since you now know, or a good wax does well.
I think if you tried a stripping and cleaning rather than a sanding and staining you would be very surprised by how it turns out and are likely getting it closer to how it was originally made without removing much/if any of the wood itself.
Hopefully I'm not coming off like a know-it-all jerk telling you how to do your hobby, genuinely not my intention. Just wanted to pass along some things I have learned from research and having made more than a few errors over the years. I can say with some certainty though that I have never seen a modern stain job that ends up looking as good as the natural wood, especially the old stuff :)
Keep it up and I am looking forward to your future videos (I promise I won't butt in without being asked like this on the next ones).
I love this. No need to apologize, I greatly appreciate the input. I'll look into doing something different from sanding and staining like so with one of my next projects. I recently went garage sailing and picked up a few pieces😉 Thank you.
Is this your music at the end? I dig it.
Haha no it's just from the TH-cam audio library. I use my music in my shorts. Don't have much released yet, just stuff I made years ago for background music. I've been working on a 10 song album for a while now that I'm hoping to put out this year.