Well, friends, I had all but decided to stop posting all my projects because it takes almost as long to watermark and upload photos and document the process as it does to finish the project itself. During our home construction, everything I posted was getting lots of traffic, but the last several posts have very few page views. I started this blog to keep friends and family back home up to date on the construction of our house, and there seemed to be interest from unexpected readers after we moved, so I kept blogging. But now it seems maybe it's run its course, and that is perfectly ok with me. I'm just letting you know I may or may not continue to post. If you're reading this, you're already doing your part to make it worth my time. :) If you're reading this but missed a lot of other recent posts, scroll down to the right and enter your email address and "blogger" will ping you whenever I post, if I continue to post.
All that said, as I started this project I decided I was going to blog about it whether anyone else reads it or not because the whole project and process fascinated me. It's my first trunk restoration project, and right from the beginning it was full of unexpected twists and turns, and it involved new tools, new techniques etc. My father-in-law inherited several old trunks from his grandma, and I asked if we could have one. My mother-in-law warned me the only large one left was in pretty rough shape, but as usual a new challenge like this doesn't discourage me but rather it energizes me. Perhaps I should have let it discourage me a little because it really was in very rough shape. haha Here she is before I got to work:
I had to do a lot of research just to learn the anatomy of these trunks and how they're put together. When it arrived at our house, it was missing the lid stays (those are the elbow joint looking pieces that help guide the trunk lid open and closed). The leather handle straps had completely disintegrated leaving the empty end caps. The top was no longer attached because the hinges had pulled the nails right out. The base was missing a chunk on the top front corner and had a hole in the bottom front. It has a crocodile stamped pattern on most of it, and I had just assumed it was leather at first because it was a dirty, dark brown color. As I started cleaning and researching, I discovered that was stamped steel that just evenly rusted all over, but I'll get to that later.
I started by removing the mostly disintegrated paper lining inside the trunk, sanding down the wood planks and getting it cleaned up inside. A spray bottle of water and a paint scraper made pretty quick work of that, though the inside of the top was in really bad shape with as much wood splintered and rotted as what was left in tact. I had to use a ton of wood filler to get the dome lid into respectable condition. Here's the paper I started scraping off inside the base:
Next I removed what was left of the leather handles and the end caps. This, and actually the whole project overall, would be a lot easier if you could take all the pieces off and work on them individually so as to not ruin the surrounding materials. The problem is, these old trunks are built with clinch nails, also known as cut nails or square shank nails. The nails are 1/4" longer than the material they're nailed through, and they use a block of metal on the back so that as the nails come through, they make a u-turn and go back into the wood for extra staying power. Here's an image I pulled from lucianaveryblacksmith.com showing the cross-section of what a clinched nail looks like once it's properly in place:
It's cool, and all, and it's great for the first generation using the trunk. But getting these nails out is no fun! You have to expose some of the nail head, then either saw or cut it off with heavy wire cutters and tap the shank in to push the u-turn out the back and then pull that out. It makes a mess of the wood and you can't re-use the nail holes! More learning curve.
The next thing I tackled was the missing chunk on the front corner. If removing all the nails didn't tear up the wood so much I would have just removed everything on the front left side - the latch, the steel sheet, the corner hardware etc, build up the wood, and then re-cover with new steel and reattach everything. But, the nails are what they are. So instead, I used a hand saw to make the notch more defined 90 degree angles and then I cut a small piece of wood to fit it.
Over the wood I used a thin metal mesh repair sheet by Bondo and just shaped it to cover the whole area by snipping away with wire cutters, though I'm told scissors would cut through it as well. I was careful to ensure the mesh met or covered the jagged edges of the existing metal. My first priority was making it safe and free from jagged edges for all the little fingers in our house. The second priority was trying to make it look decent. :)
Then I played with Bondo body filler for the first time, and it requires that you mix the gray filler with a red hardener and when you get an even putty color it's ready! They tell you not to mix more than you can use in 3-4 minutes on the instructions but I'd advise not mixing more than you can use in 1-2 minutes! It hardens fast! I covered the corner as well as the little hole on the bottom front panel, let it dry 20 minutes and then sanded with regular sand paper and voila. Try to picture the color matching. :) This is pretty cool stuff - I have a feeling I'll be inventing reasons to use it again soon.
Then I attempted to clean the outside with steel wool and vinegar, but it wasn't doing much no matter how much elbow grease. Remember, the entire thing was covered in an even layer of rust. That's when I brought out the big guns - a drill with a wire brush wheel attached! I blew through a fully charged 18v Lithium Ion drill battery in like 2 minutes, so then we brought out the even bigger guns - an old electric (plug in) drill that looks like a dinosaur but got the job done! Quite a difference right? That small patch took quite a while though.
Brent helped with this because it's really hard work - after an entire Sunday on the patio taking the drill to metal we got about 2/3 through the crocodile metal on the base of the trunk, and I could barely open a jar or squeeze toothpaste onto my toothbrush the next day! However, it was this first day of wire brushing that really made me realize what I was refinishing. I was just wire-brushing along and realized that there were dates stamped into the metal plate around the lock on the front. It was completely invisible with the rust, and then when the rust was blasted away, a perfect date stamp! The trunk was made and issued in September 1867. That's 2 years after the Civil War. Stop and think about that for a second. So while my father-in-law thinks of it as his grandma's trunk, it first belonged to her mother! I tried to get a photo of the date stamp but it's so small that the camera goes out of focus when I zoom in close enough.
Originally I had intended to just clean it up as much as I could and use it as a rustic decorative piece as opposed to functional storage. Then my mother-in-law shared pictures of one of the trunks she kept and painted in various metallics and re-wallpapered the inside. So my internal war raged - do I dare deviate from the original condition of such a historic piece? Then it occurred to me that if future descendants of my family get their hands on a piece of my furniture or something 150 years from now, I hope they will update it to their personal preferences fitting the style 150 years from now, or even 160 - assuming they'll be trend setters! I'd rather they enjoy the piece in whatever form makes them happy than try to maximize the potential resale value of it! Suddenly I realized with the possibility of changing the colors, it would make a really special toy chest for the doodle's room that she can keep forever. With that, although I never met her, I hope it makes doodle's Great-Great-Great Grandma happy to look down and see something of hers continue to be enjoyed and treasured within the family.
So on and on and on went the wire-brushing until all the crocodile metal was revealed and looking like metal again! While we were at it, we brushed the hinges, clamps, clasps, and decorative metal hardware. Those didn't get quite as bright, but I was ok with that - it's more of a gunmetal color as opposed to a bright steel. I couldn't get the blackened sheet metal on the corner panels to brighten up so I'm not sure what that is but I'm guessing it's not steel, but I decided to just paint the sheet metal anyhow. The wirebrushing alone took over a week and we went through 14 or 15 wirebrush wheels! If anyone's reading this and about to wirebrush antique metal - please be advised!! You want brass wirebrushes - not steel. The former won't put extra holes in your metal, the latter just might! :)
Next I sanded all the wood slats as smooth as I could, and I had planned to stain them to keep them looking like wood. However, the wood is just too old to take new stain well, so I ended up painting them after all the effort of sanding them down. *sigh Although I painted it, I heavily distressed it with 2 undertones so it still looks like old wood. To do that, I painted a patchy layer of black in random spots and then sealed all the wood with shellac before hitting it with the white paint. Then when I sanded, both black and natural wood tones started peeking through. When I first got the trunk you couldn't tell which parts were wood, which were metal, and which (if any) were leather! If nothing else, now all the materials are very obvious.
The metal that stayed very dark after stripping it down had to be lightened up to work in her room, or in our house in general, so I put a coat of hammered silver metal Rustoleum to treat the remaining rustiness and then painted it pink. I gave white and mint a lot of consideration to blend with the rest of the furniture in there or to blend with any room in our house respectively. :) But once I painted the wood slats, I figured full steam ahead on girling up this trunk and 'Charming Pink' by Sherwin Williams won out in the end.
So I was all excited about nearing the end while I was painting the pink areas, and I started noticing a bunch of previously pristine wire brushed crocodile areas had started rusting, heavily, again! Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?????? "This is the song that doesn't end, yes it goes on and on my friend. Some people started singing it not knowing what it was, and they'll continue singing it forever just because this is the...." yeah, that's what it felt like, and now you'll sing that the rest of the day and feel my pain!
See? It went from sparkly clean metal to this after just a few days:
It'd been inside our centrally de-humidified house and it hadn't even been a week since we finished the wire brushing! So after finishing all the paint, we wire brushed those rusty areas again, cleaned it with mineral spirits and immediately tried sealing it. It was humid in the garage while we were wire-brushing, and maybe we were inhaling too many rust fumes but Brent and I would both swear under oath that as we'd finish wire-brushing an area it'd start darkening again right before our eyes! It felt like a massive race to brush it, swoop it inside and get it sealed! To seal the metal, I used a product called Penetrol. It's generally an additive for oil based paints to prevent brush marks and create a smoother paint finish. However, I was also told it's a great sealer for bare metal for protection and shine. It didn't smell that bad, went on VERY easy, and didn't destroy my paintbrush. The only bummer is it takes 24 hours to cure, so I had to leave the entire trunk alone for a whole day. Boo!
I had to order several parts to get the trunk functioning again, and I genuinely gave it my best shot to maintain the original construction. I ordered clinch nails and was able to use them to install the leather straps and their end caps, as well as the lid stays. However, because of the way the original hinges were attached, I would have had to remove all the metal strapping all the way around the trunk and replace it in order to use clinch nails to attach the hinges. When it came to that point, and the trunk had already been painted pink, we moved to plan B...machine screws with nuts and washers. Sorry history buffs - we really did try! :(
Here are the brandy new handles and end caps! Funny - this is the same style end cap that was on the trunk originally, but to buy them new, they're already aged and oxidized and were a dark brown color. So I had to liquid silverleaf them and then glazed them to look like the original hardware had been wire brushed.
and here she is all finished:
For those of you cheaters who scroll down to see the finished project without reading my tales of woe, please be advised the brown in the before picture is not just paint or stain! It's RUST that was painstakingly brushed off with elbow grease, determination (and power tools!)
So I hope trunk purists don't stumble on this post and hate me for the inability to keep it 100% authentic in hardware (and color). We tried our best on the construction, and the color and style will serve the doodle perfectly for hopefully a very long time. I'm really happy with how it turned out, and mostly I'm just really happy this project is behind me. :)
Her room is almost done now!!!
All that said, as I started this project I decided I was going to blog about it whether anyone else reads it or not because the whole project and process fascinated me. It's my first trunk restoration project, and right from the beginning it was full of unexpected twists and turns, and it involved new tools, new techniques etc. My father-in-law inherited several old trunks from his grandma, and I asked if we could have one. My mother-in-law warned me the only large one left was in pretty rough shape, but as usual a new challenge like this doesn't discourage me but rather it energizes me. Perhaps I should have let it discourage me a little because it really was in very rough shape. haha Here she is before I got to work:
I had to do a lot of research just to learn the anatomy of these trunks and how they're put together. When it arrived at our house, it was missing the lid stays (those are the elbow joint looking pieces that help guide the trunk lid open and closed). The leather handle straps had completely disintegrated leaving the empty end caps. The top was no longer attached because the hinges had pulled the nails right out. The base was missing a chunk on the top front corner and had a hole in the bottom front. It has a crocodile stamped pattern on most of it, and I had just assumed it was leather at first because it was a dirty, dark brown color. As I started cleaning and researching, I discovered that was stamped steel that just evenly rusted all over, but I'll get to that later.
I started by removing the mostly disintegrated paper lining inside the trunk, sanding down the wood planks and getting it cleaned up inside. A spray bottle of water and a paint scraper made pretty quick work of that, though the inside of the top was in really bad shape with as much wood splintered and rotted as what was left in tact. I had to use a ton of wood filler to get the dome lid into respectable condition. Here's the paper I started scraping off inside the base:
Next I removed what was left of the leather handles and the end caps. This, and actually the whole project overall, would be a lot easier if you could take all the pieces off and work on them individually so as to not ruin the surrounding materials. The problem is, these old trunks are built with clinch nails, also known as cut nails or square shank nails. The nails are 1/4" longer than the material they're nailed through, and they use a block of metal on the back so that as the nails come through, they make a u-turn and go back into the wood for extra staying power. Here's an image I pulled from lucianaveryblacksmith.com showing the cross-section of what a clinched nail looks like once it's properly in place:
The next thing I tackled was the missing chunk on the front corner. If removing all the nails didn't tear up the wood so much I would have just removed everything on the front left side - the latch, the steel sheet, the corner hardware etc, build up the wood, and then re-cover with new steel and reattach everything. But, the nails are what they are. So instead, I used a hand saw to make the notch more defined 90 degree angles and then I cut a small piece of wood to fit it.
Over the wood I used a thin metal mesh repair sheet by Bondo and just shaped it to cover the whole area by snipping away with wire cutters, though I'm told scissors would cut through it as well. I was careful to ensure the mesh met or covered the jagged edges of the existing metal. My first priority was making it safe and free from jagged edges for all the little fingers in our house. The second priority was trying to make it look decent. :)
Then I played with Bondo body filler for the first time, and it requires that you mix the gray filler with a red hardener and when you get an even putty color it's ready! They tell you not to mix more than you can use in 3-4 minutes on the instructions but I'd advise not mixing more than you can use in 1-2 minutes! It hardens fast! I covered the corner as well as the little hole on the bottom front panel, let it dry 20 minutes and then sanded with regular sand paper and voila. Try to picture the color matching. :) This is pretty cool stuff - I have a feeling I'll be inventing reasons to use it again soon.
Then I attempted to clean the outside with steel wool and vinegar, but it wasn't doing much no matter how much elbow grease. Remember, the entire thing was covered in an even layer of rust. That's when I brought out the big guns - a drill with a wire brush wheel attached! I blew through a fully charged 18v Lithium Ion drill battery in like 2 minutes, so then we brought out the even bigger guns - an old electric (plug in) drill that looks like a dinosaur but got the job done! Quite a difference right? That small patch took quite a while though.
Brent helped with this because it's really hard work - after an entire Sunday on the patio taking the drill to metal we got about 2/3 through the crocodile metal on the base of the trunk, and I could barely open a jar or squeeze toothpaste onto my toothbrush the next day! However, it was this first day of wire brushing that really made me realize what I was refinishing. I was just wire-brushing along and realized that there were dates stamped into the metal plate around the lock on the front. It was completely invisible with the rust, and then when the rust was blasted away, a perfect date stamp! The trunk was made and issued in September 1867. That's 2 years after the Civil War. Stop and think about that for a second. So while my father-in-law thinks of it as his grandma's trunk, it first belonged to her mother! I tried to get a photo of the date stamp but it's so small that the camera goes out of focus when I zoom in close enough.
Originally I had intended to just clean it up as much as I could and use it as a rustic decorative piece as opposed to functional storage. Then my mother-in-law shared pictures of one of the trunks she kept and painted in various metallics and re-wallpapered the inside. So my internal war raged - do I dare deviate from the original condition of such a historic piece? Then it occurred to me that if future descendants of my family get their hands on a piece of my furniture or something 150 years from now, I hope they will update it to their personal preferences fitting the style 150 years from now, or even 160 - assuming they'll be trend setters! I'd rather they enjoy the piece in whatever form makes them happy than try to maximize the potential resale value of it! Suddenly I realized with the possibility of changing the colors, it would make a really special toy chest for the doodle's room that she can keep forever. With that, although I never met her, I hope it makes doodle's Great-Great-Great Grandma happy to look down and see something of hers continue to be enjoyed and treasured within the family.
So on and on and on went the wire-brushing until all the crocodile metal was revealed and looking like metal again! While we were at it, we brushed the hinges, clamps, clasps, and decorative metal hardware. Those didn't get quite as bright, but I was ok with that - it's more of a gunmetal color as opposed to a bright steel. I couldn't get the blackened sheet metal on the corner panels to brighten up so I'm not sure what that is but I'm guessing it's not steel, but I decided to just paint the sheet metal anyhow. The wirebrushing alone took over a week and we went through 14 or 15 wirebrush wheels! If anyone's reading this and about to wirebrush antique metal - please be advised!! You want brass wirebrushes - not steel. The former won't put extra holes in your metal, the latter just might! :)
Next I sanded all the wood slats as smooth as I could, and I had planned to stain them to keep them looking like wood. However, the wood is just too old to take new stain well, so I ended up painting them after all the effort of sanding them down. *sigh Although I painted it, I heavily distressed it with 2 undertones so it still looks like old wood. To do that, I painted a patchy layer of black in random spots and then sealed all the wood with shellac before hitting it with the white paint. Then when I sanded, both black and natural wood tones started peeking through. When I first got the trunk you couldn't tell which parts were wood, which were metal, and which (if any) were leather! If nothing else, now all the materials are very obvious.
The metal that stayed very dark after stripping it down had to be lightened up to work in her room, or in our house in general, so I put a coat of hammered silver metal Rustoleum to treat the remaining rustiness and then painted it pink. I gave white and mint a lot of consideration to blend with the rest of the furniture in there or to blend with any room in our house respectively. :) But once I painted the wood slats, I figured full steam ahead on girling up this trunk and 'Charming Pink' by Sherwin Williams won out in the end.
So I was all excited about nearing the end while I was painting the pink areas, and I started noticing a bunch of previously pristine wire brushed crocodile areas had started rusting, heavily, again! Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?????? "This is the song that doesn't end, yes it goes on and on my friend. Some people started singing it not knowing what it was, and they'll continue singing it forever just because this is the...." yeah, that's what it felt like, and now you'll sing that the rest of the day and feel my pain!
See? It went from sparkly clean metal to this after just a few days:
It'd been inside our centrally de-humidified house and it hadn't even been a week since we finished the wire brushing! So after finishing all the paint, we wire brushed those rusty areas again, cleaned it with mineral spirits and immediately tried sealing it. It was humid in the garage while we were wire-brushing, and maybe we were inhaling too many rust fumes but Brent and I would both swear under oath that as we'd finish wire-brushing an area it'd start darkening again right before our eyes! It felt like a massive race to brush it, swoop it inside and get it sealed! To seal the metal, I used a product called Penetrol. It's generally an additive for oil based paints to prevent brush marks and create a smoother paint finish. However, I was also told it's a great sealer for bare metal for protection and shine. It didn't smell that bad, went on VERY easy, and didn't destroy my paintbrush. The only bummer is it takes 24 hours to cure, so I had to leave the entire trunk alone for a whole day. Boo!
I had to order several parts to get the trunk functioning again, and I genuinely gave it my best shot to maintain the original construction. I ordered clinch nails and was able to use them to install the leather straps and their end caps, as well as the lid stays. However, because of the way the original hinges were attached, I would have had to remove all the metal strapping all the way around the trunk and replace it in order to use clinch nails to attach the hinges. When it came to that point, and the trunk had already been painted pink, we moved to plan B...machine screws with nuts and washers. Sorry history buffs - we really did try! :(
Here are the brandy new handles and end caps! Funny - this is the same style end cap that was on the trunk originally, but to buy them new, they're already aged and oxidized and were a dark brown color. So I had to liquid silverleaf them and then glazed them to look like the original hardware had been wire brushed.
 |
| the lid stays are also brand new - those are the silver joint hardware pieces keeping the lid from opening too far. |
and here she is all finished:
For those of you cheaters who scroll down to see the finished project without reading my tales of woe, please be advised the brown in the before picture is not just paint or stain! It's RUST that was painstakingly brushed off with elbow grease, determination (and power tools!)
So I hope trunk purists don't stumble on this post and hate me for the inability to keep it 100% authentic in hardware (and color). We tried our best on the construction, and the color and style will serve the doodle perfectly for hopefully a very long time. I'm really happy with how it turned out, and mostly I'm just really happy this project is behind me. :)
Her room is almost done now!!!
Comments
Post a Comment