The Latest From The Workshop Part 1

I found a couple of discarded pieces of children's furniture by the side of the road a while back and have had them in my shop covered up in a corner for a couple of years. 

Now that my niece has a daughter of her own I thought it was a good time to do something with them.

Both pieces appear to date from the post WWII baby boom era and we're quite well used if not abused.

Although of that age they weren't exactly built with a fine eye towards craftsmanship. Such would not be the case in rebuilding and refinishing them.

My grandneice is going to get a surprise from Santa!

First up was a child's vanity table. There wasn't a bit of glue used in the original manufacturing, just nails and a few screws. The years of use left the piece wobbly and loose. This was something of a blessing in disguise as it made the disassembly quiet easy. The refinish and reassembly was pretty straight forward. With lots of sanding, working my way down to 1500 grit.

All the parts were then lightly stained and the given another finish sanding to remove and raised grain coming from the staining. The reassembly was done using modern wood glue, finish nails and clamps. Places that had previously been held together with screws were carefully drilled out and filled with wood plugs and sanded smooth. Exposed nailheads were set and then filled with plastic wood and sanded smooth along with the plugs.

The finishing was done with spray gloss polyurethane and polished with 2000 grit between coats and then 2500 grit after the final coat.

Next up was a far more complicated child's rolltop desk.

To be continued...