The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Thank you for the kind words!
No new pics yet. Just more boring ol' sanding being done to the rest of the rope trim. I think it'll take me 3 more days just to finish that part.

Yup, I've shown the family and they keep asking me if it's done yet. Everybody wants to hear this thing belt out some tunes!

Finally got that rope border done. Took longer than expected, but turned out pretty good. Here's a before and after of one of the corners: I did notice there was a few spots in the trim where the fibers had either rotted out, or just got bumped in the past and was missing a chunk. Neither looked pretty, especially the rotted part which is on the front edge of the lid. I didn't want a defect to be the first thing you see when you look at the finished machine, so I went about fixing it. Here's what those two areas looked like: I decided to try and experimenting with patching it using a method I saw online. First I needed wood that would match this old wood perfectly. I still had the old veneer I peeled off the box lid, so I'll use that: Next, I cut out some little pieces: Then I used Hide glue and layered the pieces up like a cake and shoved the skinny side into the damaged areas: The next experiment is similar. I start by sanding down some of that veneer to make saw dust: Then I mix it with some hide glue on wax paper: Then a similar process as the first one, whereby I slap some of this glue on bits of layered veneer and mush it all into the damaged spot: Now this does look terrible, but it does get better. The idea being that when I sand this down the hide glue will have the wood dust mixed in and won't stand out as much as just plain hide glue.

After 24 hours of curing, I could then start the sanding process. First I used my rotary tool with one of these bits on it to take down the bulk of the excess: Now it looks like this: Next is an all too familiar step; sanding. After careful sanding I end up with this: The first patch I did with just hide glue has the pro of being sticky and mostly easy to work with. The con is that any areas you can't sand end up being shiny glue. The upside is that you won't notice this after it gets a coat of shellac: The pros of using the saw dust + hide glue combo is that there will be no shiny glue left over and it'll blend in with the surrounding wood better; much like wood filler. The con is, it's a bit tricky to get it to stick to what you want because the saw dust has reduced its adhesion properties. It still stuck on really good, and after some more sanding it's almost impossible to find. Bonus points to the one who can find the patch: Now that the rope trim is done, I turned the lid over and decided to sand down that veneer a bit to clean it up, but mostly to even out the blotchy old finish: I didn't take it all off as I wanted to maintain some of that 'old wood' look. Plus the underside of the lid gets the dirtiest anyways:
Now I'll have some questions regarding shellac, stains, and sanding. My plan was to leave the box as is and just spray shellac all over it so that I wouldn't have to sand it. However, from what I've read, you pretty much have to sand the shellac every two coats to get it smooth and rub it with steel wool. The problem is that the wood for the base and walls of the box is pretty weathered and rough, much like that rope trim was. So any steel wool rubbing I do will get caught in all the rough fibers and even possibly break some fibers. I know this will happen because just wiping it down with cloth or paper towel gets lint trapped in all sorts of places and it won't come out unless I sit there for hours picking it out with tweezers!
I really didn't want to sand it because of all it's intricate woodwork and it would be a real pain to get into all the corners and rope trims, but now that I'm at the 'trying-to-make-new-wood-match-old-wood" stage with my various staining experiments, it's proving difficult to obtain an even looking color. I'm just wondering what you guys would recommend; shellac it as is, or sand it all down?

For example, this is the base of the box. These discolorations and stains will not come out. I've tried every chemical there is to attempt to get an even color: And all of the box sides have a similar story. They start out dirtier looking near the bottom and look most natural near the top:
I'd just hate to shellac it after all this work and have it turn out blotchy and thinking that I should have sanded it down to clean wood.

To get a more even color with the old weathered wood, use wood bleach (not household bleach) which will lighten it to an even color... I had a Berliner case that looked like yours, except it also had something spilled on top which could not be removed even with sanding, so I tried wood bleach and it worked perfectly. Once it had dried I didn't stain the case, just used orange shellac and it came out looking like an original finish. The original cases were not stained, so unless you are trying to spot repair an original finish to get it to match, don't use stain as it will give it an artificial color...

You can buy premixed wood bleach or you can mix your own:
http://antiquerestorers.com/Articles/je ... bleach.htm
https://www.woodmagazine.com/materials- ... ood-bleach
https://www.popularwoodworking.com/proj ... ching-wood

Oxalic acid will even out all the weathering caused by the water damage. It will take the wood to a nearly new looking apperance. I have used it for years on old oak furniture I refinished. Check it out.
You can buy it at hardware stores in a powder form and mix with hot water. It is often sold as wood bleach.

Hot water works best.
Dave

Thanks guys, those suggestions sound great! I'll try the bleach and the oxalic acid on some wood scraps to see which effect I prefer. I'm guessing I'll have to do some sanding on this box anyways, just because of how rough the wood is in some spots. It'll be tedious I'm sure, but why take the easy road now?

And on that note, I won't be making much progress for a while as I'll be away from the garage for many months. I was hoping to have it done before next week, but there's been too many random events popping up and preventing me from getting any work done, so I'll have to throw in the towel for now and pick it back up in a few months.

Small update, but a big deal; I finally got a horn!

Thanks to Brad for having one for sale, and thanks to John Duffy for fixing it up. It had a bit of surface rust on the funnel part, but Brad polished that away before he mailed it to John to fix a small crinkle in the brass bell and to give it a polish. John also discovered that before he could do anything to the horn, he had to remove brown paint that someone in the past had decided was a good idea to put on the brass instead of just polishing the brass like a normal person.

That's the final piece I needed for my machine. I just need to finish the wood work and I'll be good to go. Here's some before and afters of the horn:

Thanks for the update, Adam-- John does such a nice job! The horn has never looked better. I had hoarded it for many years thinking I'd use it someday-- Glad I could get it into the hands of someone who could put it to good use. I thought the bell was just badly tarnished. No idea that someone had painted it- I'm glad John was able to take care of it.
I recently got a Victor C horn into another forum member's hands-- Same hoarding story on my part-- Now, it too, is helping to complete a machine.

I look forward to seeing your pics of the completed project. Thanks!

Brad Abell

Hey, is the project still coming, Adam? You had us all in suspense!