Restoring the shellac finish on a 1920 Victor Victrola VV-XI

[pedalpoint]

Hello all,

I am taking on the project of restoring a 1920 Victor Victrola VV-XI. It is special to me because it originally belonged to my great-grandparents.

Sadly, the unit was neglected in later years. The finish suffered heat and moisture damage. I am attempting to repair that now.

This Victrola VV-XI is the red mahogany kind, and the finish is shellac. I've read about how to reflow shellac using reamalgamation and have successfully gotten the crazing ("alligator skin") gone now. The wood is beautiful underneath.

I'm surprised though by the colour. As I've brushed, I found that there was something in the shellac that is making it darker.

My question: does anyone know what the Victor finishing process was? Do you know if they added a dye to the shellac, or was all the colouring of the wood done in the stain?

Interestingly, the finish underneath the lid is lighter than the outside. And this colour I'm seeing on the outside in my repaired sections is the same colour as inside. Perhaps this colour was added by something/someone else later?

Since the wood and the colour seem to be intact, I'd definitely prefer not to strip/refinish.

I'd appreciate any restoration advice you can offer.

Thanks!

[pedalpoint]

Later today, I will upload another photo showing the discolourization that I'm describing in the OP.

[Curt A]

The dark discoloration is a natural aging effect of shellac. Years and years of exposure to sunlight, dust, smoke, cooking, coal burning furnaces and wood stoves to name a few, leave the finish with a crazed, faded, darkened, dirty appearance. It really is amazing to take the old and make the wood visible again, just like on the insides of lids.

[pedalpoint]

Here is a picture of the phenomenon I'm seeing. Note the dark area at top right. Is that the darkened shellac?

(The bottom left got thin with the shellac... I touched it up later and it looks alright again.)

[pedalpoint]

The dark discoloration is a natural aging effect of shellac. Years and years of exposure to sunlight, dust, smoke, cooking, coal burning furnaces and wood stoves to name a few, leave the finish with a crazed, faded, darkened, dirty appearance.

I am curious: should I use denatured alcohol to remove the darkened shellac in those areas, and then add new shellac? Is this a matter of using a rag saturated in alcohol? (I'm wondering how to proceed.)

[martinola]

Perhaps it's just me, but the darkened areas in your photo look like a better color match to the interior of the lid. Just going by the photo, I'd be more inclined to try to darken up the lighter areas to match the darker areas. For that I'd probably mix in aniline stain with some shellac and build up the color by degrees. Being that it's a family heirloom, it's totally worth the effort to fixing the lid. Good luck.

Martin

[pedalpoint]

Perhaps it's just me, but the darkened areas in your photo look like a better color match to the interior of the lid.

Hi Martin,
Sorry, that first photo was taken in bad light in my basement. I'm not actually sure of the right colour. Here's a close-up of the lid inside.

[martinola]

Obviously, the color under the lid is what you want to match. It's hard to tell from the photo you've got here. The lighter areas look too light, but it may just be exposure variation.

Perhaps the darkest staining was from moisture damage? If so, then the color problem will extend into the actual wood itself. Anybody else got an idea?

[pedalpoint]

Perhaps the darkest staining was from moisture damage?

That's what I'm wondering. If the Victor finishing process was to stain the wood and then cover with shellac, that would be good to know. But if there was other things they did, like adding dye to the shellac, that makes things more complicated.

Related question: when do you give up on a shellac finish and start over? Can you remove it with an alcohol-soaked rag and then build up a new shellac finish?

[EarlH]

The picture of the top of your lid is interesting, but it's kind of hard to tell what exactly caused the finish to change like it did. You might be better off to remove all the finish from the top of the lid and refinish that so it's all one color. You will probably find it pretty difficult to match the dark places and get it all the same. And even if by some luck you do, in five years or so it will fade differently again anyway. Reds are prone to fade, especially if they are in bright light. I know of a Victrola XVI here in town that has been on a west facing front porch since WWII (according to the old guy that has it) and it's almost bone white now! It's hard to tell what that would take stain like now after all of that sun bleaching.
And yes, Victor did stain the wood first and it was general practice in those days to seal it down with shellac. They didn't put color in the finish. Maybe to touch up some small area. If you are going to use much color in your top coats, you will need a spray guy and probably use lacquer or you're really going to have a lot of streaks all over the place. Colored varnish really is tricky to get laid down right unless there isn't much color in it.
I know Victor mentions that they sprayed varnish on their cabinets at the factory, but I really have trouble believing that they mean it the way we would think of it today. Varnish does not atomize very well and it's a nightmare to spray even today. They really didn't have spray equipment like we would think of today. I have a Devilbiss spray gun that was made about 1917 and it was really just to spray the finish on and then it was brushed out from there. Doing it that way would keep dirt and dust from getting into the finish and it also really speeds up the process as they finisher wouldn't have to keep filling the brush with varnish from a can. I've refinished enough of the old style Victrolas to see some of the puddles, streaks, et. that normally you would not expect to see in a "sprayed" finish. But spraying the varnish on and brushing it out would be a huge advantage and the coats would go on much more evenly doing it that way. Spraying lacquers like we think of today, began in 1924 and it swept the industry. What formerly took weeks and months to do, could now be done in half a day. It must have seemed like a miracle to those folks. Overall, the finishes that Victor and Edison did, were quite nice. Especially on the more expensive machines. Victor probably did nicer finishes on their cheaper machines than Edison did.