The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Well I have been working on my Stratford for 2 ½ months. The majority of that time on the console cabinet. The machine was complete except for the center of the horn grill and the disc folders were missing. Someone had attempted to refinish the outside of the console but probably got in over their head sometime in the past, only working on the front, sides and top. It had striper runs down the back and a couple runs down the inside of the play area. There were many dents, dinks and scratches all over the place but the veneer was all there and tight. I can see that the best course of action was to break the cabinet down and work on it a piece at a time. It took about a month to strip each piece and sand them down to be ready for stain. Now the fun begins. After sanding I see that there are many more flaws in the wood than at first glance. First 2 of the legs have splits in the feet and chew marks on the inside of the legs, like someone's dog laid under it and used it as a chew toy. First I had to re-glue the splits which were in the jointing layers of the wood. I used my veneer saw to clean out any old glue and dirt from the split. Then worked new glue into split with a glue syringe and pallet knife and clamped them to dry. It took a little bit to fill all the chew marks but thankfully they are on the inside of the legs and will not be seen from the outside.
The rest of the panels were pretty straight forward but I did see the need to replace 3 small areas of veneer in the lid and left side were dents had gone through the veneer. Not having any mahogany veneer on hand and only needing about 1 inch square of material I removed veneer off of one corner of the inside back of the horn panel. It has aged along with the rest of the machine and should give me a close match as compared to new veneer. All of the pieces I hand sanded because the veneer was paper thin from the prior refinish. After getting all the pieces ready for staining I used Red Mahogany oil based stain on all pieces and let them dry for about 3 days then lightly #0000 wool. I decided that due to all the character this machine has acuminated that a high gloss finish would not look right, so I am using satin lacquer for the finish. Here I laid the main pieces together after 3 coats and I think it is going where I want it to go. It probably will take about 5 coats on the sides and pieces but the top is going to take a lot more coats to level out the surface from the dinks and scratches.

Your Brunswick is turning out really nice. What kind of grain filler are you using, or are you trying to level it up with lacquer? Brunswick really made nice cabinets, and when the spray lacquers came out in 1924, they really were good with those finishes.

While continuing to give the cabinet additional coats of lacquer I started on the horn area. The horn had splash marks of shellac or varnish on the inside and a few paint splits in the seams of the throat and horn. I sanded the stains and varnish off to get down to the true color of the paint. Then I took a piece of paper and sprayed it with 3M adhesive. While finishing the sanding I took the paint dust and coated the paper with it. This will be the paint swatch I will use to match a satin finish paint to restore the horn to as close of the color as I can. It is about a cream color and was easy to get a swatch at the paint store.

Thanks Earlh, I am using the lacquer and old school brushing. Because of all the scratches and dinks I took a small paint brush and drop filled each spot. After about 3 go arounds of each area I blocked the high spots of the drops. I did this 4 or 5 times before adding additional coats and blocking the whole surface. Very time consuming but I got the time.

Nice work!

Next the grill restore. The very center of my grill has been broken out at some point and somebody had cut the points off smooth and put a heavy grill cloth as a backer. After looking for the detail on the missing piece this is the best pic I could find. Many pics out there but once you zoom in not much detail. With this pic I can see the detail shape of the missing piece and that it has a twelve pedal oval rosette in the middle. Using the pic and scaling based on what I have remaining I drew the pattern on card stock as best I could. Next I hand sanded the grill, not and easy job but I have the patients. Next I planed down a piece of ¾" mahogany down to just under ⅜" to match the grill thickness and made a pattern to transfer of the profile. I cut the inside detail first to shape before cutting the outside profile. I didn't want to take a chance of breaking it if I did it last. I cut the outside next and ruff it in ready to put the finale edge finish on the piece. Next the rosette, I got it shaped out using carving chisels and it is ready to sand down. Also there is a broken piece of detail on the lower end that someone glued back crudity and off center with the tip missing. Let's see what we can do here. Now let's get it all together. The inside edges of all the details have been painted with brown paint and it was crusty and needed sanding before staining the outside. That done now staining. I don't like the grill cloth that someone had glued to the grill, very heavy and not like original. Based on what I found left glued to the inside I got new cloth at Jo Ann's that is shear and a light tan color.

This is very impressive work! I suspect it isn't your first time with woodworking...!

George P.

WOW!!! Amazing job and attention to detail.

Herderz, as usual... Astounding!

Beautiful work as always! Can't wait to see it when it's finished.

David