Diary of a Stripper....part IV

Making progress on the desk project...

The last piece to be stripped, now its just a matter of scraping, sanding, putting it back together, staining, urethane, making new drawer pulls....that's all!

Gluing the left side pieces back together

lots of clamps! I did this side in 2 stages but the right side I'm gonna glue all at once.

Here's how it looks today....somehow I think I sanded too much, the right side looks just like a garbage can now! OK, seriously, the right half gets glued together tomorrow, woo hoo!

And the award goes to...

Diary of a Stripper....part III

Quick update on that desk refinishing project...I can't imagine how it's been for you all having to wait so long for this...

This is an end view of the backing piece and I layed a straight strip of wood across to show how cupped it was. I didnt wanna leave it like that sooooooo...

I got out my trusty liquid hide glue and attached some scrap Ash wood to the inside to straighten it out. There's still plenty of clearance for the drawers to close all the way.

Here's how it looks now. It's not glued back together yet, still plenty of sanding and refining to do, but at least it's starting to look like I actually DID something!

That grain figure on the side should look really nice when a finish is put on it!

A comparison to the other half that I havent started on yet! That back piece is nice and straight and sturdy now, woo hoo!

Something for Joe!

Diary of a Stripper.... part II

Things can get pretty ugly when stripping....

Did some more work on my desk project this week. Upon examination of the construction of the desk I decided to unscrew the top so I could turn it over, which makes cleaning the old paint and varnish off WAY easier than trying to scrape into corners and stuff like that. You can see that under the desk in the middle it looks as though someone had used it to sharpen their pencil point or perhaps they were just scribbling?

Of course then it hits me that a lot of the other pieces would be easier to strip and clean up if they were removed too, sooooooo I started dismantling one half of the casing.

This is kinda fun but also nerve-wracking because I dont want to break anything! Luckily the glue is pretty dried out and brittle so most of the joints are coming apart fairly easy. I'm leaving half of it together and will work on the other half until it's clean, sanded and all re-assembled, then I'll do the other half. This is so I wont forget how it all goes together!

All the little pieces labeled so they go back in their correct locations!

The little apron pieces along the bottom of the sides are in pretty rough shape. I may try to make new ones instead of fixing these. Only 3 of them had nails which leads me to conclude that originally they were all glued on but over the years 3 had come loose and someone toe-nailed them to keep them in place.

A Lana Turner pic so Joe wont be angry with me.

To be continued...

Diary of a Stripper....part I

Bet my hit counter goes way up tonight....

My asshole aunt gave me this neat old desk when she moved a few months back. She bought it from a used furniture store and slapped a coat of white latex paint on it as soon as she got it home. OK rule number one- latex paint is NOT the proper finishing material for furniture... it NEVER fully dries and even if you do a good prep job any objects left on it for any appreciable amount of time will either stick to it or lift the paint when you pick them up!

She also decided to put different pulls on the drawers so she filled in the original holes with wood putty and drilled new ones in the center so she could install cheap plastic Walmart pulls in place of the nice original brass ones! Genius!

Despite the mess she made with the paint and the pulls I felt the desk was worth saving and after peeling some paint away I was convinced it was made of walnut, one of my favorite woods! I'm sure you can imagine my excitement!

Let the stripping begin! Woo hoo, Go Baby Go!!!!

The chemical stripper slop smells god awful but it sure works good! Took the old varnish off underneath the paint too.

Getting there! For the most part the entire desk is in very solid shape. They made shit to last back in them there days!

I didn't use chemical stripper on the sides and tried out my cabinet scraper instead. It did a much less messy job but I still have to use the chemical to get the rest of the old varnish off. So in the end I'll still have to make a mess *sigh*

Imagine covering this beautiful walnut desktop with white paint!

"da horror.....da horror...."

The drawers are no fun because she goobered so many paint drips down the sides and inside them, it took a lot of scraping and sanding but in the end they clean up pretty nice! I've decided to make my own pulls so all the holes will get covered up. I'll make'em out of black walnut just like the ones I did for my bathroom which should make a nice contrast with the regular walnut.

To be continued...