Jul 22nd, 2020

Author: donich_admin

Restoring the Deed Box

Since I was a child I have loved an old Deed box which has been in the family for ages. I don’t know how old it is, but I would guess at least 150 years. My Mum gave it to me recently and it was in dire need of repair – there were water marks all over the lid, the varnish was all faded and there were bits of the surface veneer missing in multiple places.

So having watched many, many episodes of one of my favourite TV programs “The Repair Shop” I turned my hands to the box. I bought a wood restoration kit from Amazon, part one was a wood restoration oil which removes water marks and other stains, and the second part was beeswax polish. I also got some wood veneer offcuts. First of all I made a template for the missing veneer by applying a piece of paper to the bad bits and running a pencil round them. Then I cut the veneer to shape from the template – luckily it was thin enough to be cut with scissors. It was not quite the right colour, so I painted it before glueing it in place. Then I ran the wood restoration oil over the entire box and left it to dry. Finally, I French polished the whole box with the beeswax polish.

I don’t think I did as good a job as Will from the Repair Shop, but it has come up very nicely.

While I was at it, I also had a go at our kitchen table. It is a great little table but I think is 1940s utility, and very very prone to marking if anything wet or hot is put on it. So the same treatment as above was applied to it and I think it has turned out quite well.