Recent find: beat down Brunswick Cortez

[zenith82]

You're off to a good start and did a good job matching the veneer. To make the color of that corner blend better and make the repair more inconspicuous, you'll need to use the original finish material. When these cabinets were made, they didn't use stains like those that are commercially available today. The cabinets were either finished in dyed shellac or toned lacquer. Your Cortez falls right into the transition period when manufacturers were shifting from shellac to lacquer. I think your cabinet is lacquer, but to find out for sure, take a cotton swab soaked in denatured alcohol and rub it in an inconspicuous place on the finish. I usually test finishes inside a dark corner of the back of the cabinet or on a back edge near the bottom. If the finish dissolves, it's shellac. If not, it's lacquer.

If you're dealing with lacquer as I suspect, Wood Finisher's Depot is a good source for pigmented lacquers. They will put the colors in a rattle can and they are inexpensive enough that you can get a few shades that are close to get the best match possible. Their website is:

https://www.woodfinishersdepot.com/

For shellac finishes, you need to determine if a 1 or 2 pound cut mixture is needed. If you are new to mixing shellac, the "pound cut" refers to how many pounds of shellac flakes are dissolved per gallon of denatured alcohol. For a 1 pound cut, it means 1 pound of shellac flakes per gallon of alcohol. Or, ¼ pound of flakes per quart of alcohol. I never mix more than I'm going to use, as mixed shellac doesn't have a very long shelf life. Most of the time, I only mix a quart at a time unless I have a really big project that requires the same finish. Color is achieved through the addition of Trans-Tint dye of the appropriate color. Dyes are really strong and a little goes a long way. It helps to have a scrap piece of wood of the same species you want to finish so you can try the mixture as you are adding color to it. More information about mixing shellac:

https://www.shellac.net/PoundCutChart.html

Looking forward to seeing your progress!

As for legs, your best bet is to find a junker cabinet that has them. I could see them being cost prohibitive to reproduce. I don't know why, but a lot of people had a thing for cutting the legs off of radio and phonograph cabinets of the late '20s/early '30s. Maybe they got tired of sweeping under them....