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I've had this old VV-VIII for a long time. You could tell there was wood under the grime, barely. Tried out some 'restore a surface' compound on it and it cleaned up nicely. Took about 20 minutes to do the entire lid.

CDB

Looks great. Bet your glad you didn't go the stripping/refinishing route...

fmblizz

Nice job. The VV-VIII's always seem to have nice oak graining.

Cliff,

Have you tried the "restore-a-surface" on an alligatored mahogany finish, say an Edison Diamond Disc ?

De Soto Frank wrote:Cliff,

Have you tried the "restore-a-surface" on an alligatored mahogany finish, say an Edison Diamond Disc ?

It does nothing for damaged shellac or varnish except knock off the roughest edges and clean it up nicely. Whatever is under the grunge will still be there after cleaning and polishing. If the shellac/varnish is in good condition, the results will be very nice.

The attached picture of a nice XVI shows a sample of the results. I cleaned the lid and the left speaker door. The surface of the lid was in good condition and cleaned up nicely, the speaker door had some alligatoring and looks better than the uncleaned door on the right, but doesn't have the luster of the lid.

CDB

Nice results, especially on the oak. Are you using Howard's "Restore-A-Finish" or something else?

Clay

FloridaClay wrote:Nice results, especially on the oak. Are you using Howard's "Restore-A-Finish" or something else?

Clay

Howard Restor-A-Shine Wood Finish Polishing Compound

I haven't actually found this on the shelf with the other Howard products, had to order it special. Ace Hardware says they have it in the warehouse but they don't stock it on the shelves. Go figure...

Use the compound generously, about one can per dirty cabinet. And a lot of scrubbing.

CDB

Oak is one of the finishes that if not really damaged can be reasonably easily saved. Way back before many of these newer restorer type compounds we used to use a plain bar of soap and a semi wet rag to clean the finish on oak, you could take a very dark cabinet and restore the brightness to it. A coat of wax and it would look like new.. Unfortunately shellac over mahogany often if beyond saving or at the least requires some tricky work to make it look good again. I love oak.. At the moment none of my machines are however and I would love to find a nice oak brunswick of a larger size.. I saw one once on craigs list but I would guess it disappeared quite quickly..

Larry

Beautiful job. I wish my VV-IX was oak. It is mahogany and had to strip and stain and do tricks to mske it look right. Now it looks great. I did a light coat of spray varnish. Then had to buff out. I notice Mahogany can get some weird haze and stuff

I sanded a badly alligatored mahogany Victrola storage door. The high edges of the flaking were all sanded down smooth. Then I polished the sanded part with this stuff and there was significant luster even though the scaling left behind by the alligatoring was still present and visible when you tilt the light just right.

A lot of work, though. Don't know that all my alligatored machines would be worthy of such effort.

CDB