Posted 3 years ago
Gage_rober…
(68 items)
Hello! Its been a little while, but I have a lot of things to post so hopefully I’ll be more active on here. This is the (what i thought to be 1800’s era) gustav becker converted grandfather clock that I am restoring for my grandmother. I have put a lot of hours in and so far I have the entire case back to bare wood. The case is almost ready for finish, but i still have a few pieces of trim to sand first. The head trim piece you can see in the fourth photo took very long time to get to this point, and unfortunately i couldn't do it without taking it apart. I had to remove all three of those wooden pennials in order to get them sanded properly. All of the extras, including the lower door, the glass door, the feet, the trim for the bottom, the doorknob for the lower door and the hardware have all been either stripped or restored back to their former glory. And if you couldn't tell from the photos, the westminster chime movement is working once again! After a spring shortening and a bit of oil it is running better than ever. I got it all set up, and i think now it is pretty obvious what format case the movement had been in originally. Thats right, a wall clock. Not sure exactly what model or what year exactly, but after looking at the symbol on the movement, and doing a few google searches, I was able to determine that it was made sometime between 1915 and 1935. So it is not as old as I thought I was, but in the end, i suppose this is good news because there appears to be much less wear on the movement than their would be had it have been an older movement. Also, I wanted to ask if any of you had some advice for the finish? I think I asked this in my previous post, but I’m still undecided as to if I want to use just boiled linseed oil, or perhaps stain it and do something else entirely. Regardless, whatever the idea, feel free to drop it in the comments. And, as usual, thanks for looking!
Hey Gage,
You have quite a large selection of clamps in your shop. Judging by that and the quality of work you're doing, you must really enjoy working with wood.
Were you planning on applying with a brush, pad or perhaps spray method?
I think if i decide to go down the linseed oil route I will most likely apply the finish with a brush.
I've only used linseed oil once on a set of sawhorses that I put together. It gave a pretty decent finish. Kind of a slight yellowing of the unstained pine wood. No worries about brush marks, runs, curtains and other application issues. I don't know that I've seen it on furniture though. I hope that you'll share some final "afters" when you're all done. Looks great so far.
Of course i will share the afters. Thank you for your advice. My main goal for this project was to make the clock look Beautiful while also making it so that it can stay in the family for generations. The original patina it had could have been kept, but I think the restoration will give it new life, and a fresh start for the years to come. Either way the clock was not worth very much to begin with, so I don't think giving a redo is really going to alter the value very much. Anyways, thanks again for all your help and advice bruce! I really appreciate it. More posts on the way!
There are generally two schools of thought regarding the originality of the finish. It comes down to the owner's preferences, of course. Personally, refinishing is a last resort for me but I'm sure the clock will look beautiful when you're done with it. I agree with you that something needed to be done as the finish was looking pretty rough as found.
I'm curious to see how the linseed oil finish will turn out and so I'm looking forward to your final photos of your project. We only get four photos per posting, but maybe you could post some side-by-side before and after photos as one picture? If not, maybe include links to your previous postings somewhere in your write up or in the first "comment".
Looks like you're getting close. Good luck with it.
Again, thanks for sharing. This is interesting stuff and I'm sure others will find it helpful.
Regards,
Bruce