Re: Victrola VV-210 Splitting Wood
Posted: Thu Dec 30, 2021 11:33 am
I might have to give that a whirl, honestly. Thank you.EarlH wrote: Wed Dec 29, 2021 11:38 pm Victor for whatever reason never put any finish on the bottoms of their cabinets. I've only refinished around 60 so I haven't sampled a huge number but I haven't seen any exceptions. If that veneer isn't loose, I would give it a couple of coats of shellac down there. Often times it's all buckled up, or dropping off. I've gotten the bottoms damp, smoothed the veneer down and then worked glue under it and then weighted it down with sandbags with some waxed paper between and gotten things glued back down quite well. It's not always as nice as I'd like it to be, but at least it's stabilized and the shellac will settle things down so the veneer stays put. Your machine might have set over a heat register with those long legs.
Other place they did not finish was raw edges on the bottoms of doors. Pooley was really guilty of that and it leads to the face veneers popping loose on the door bottoms. Victor did get smart about that and put those fishbelly moldings around the bottoms of most of the cabinets they sold. Edison never seemed to concerned about that, and you'll see loose and chipped up veneer around the bottoms of those a lot. Those iron corners brackets that Victor "screwed" into place on the corners are almost never screwed in. Most of the time they just drove the screws in with a hammer. You'll know for sure if that shortcut was taken on your machine when you realize that your screwdriver won't go into the slots! I run into that with XVI's, XVII's and XVIII's almost every time. It's kind of funny, but I suppose they were in a hurry. Or the batteries were dead on the cordless screwdriver.....
Well good luck with your machine. It looks like the bottom is in pretty good shape overall. You'll be surprised at how much shellac that dry wood will pull out of the brush if you get some and seal things up down there.