Nathaniel Croft: The Antique Furniture Restorer's Handbook, Kartoniert / Broschiert

Klappentext

Behind every dark, dull, wobbly antique is a piece that was once beautiful - and can be again, the right way.

The Antique Furniture Restorer's Handbook teaches the traditional, time-tested methods that professional restorers and museum conservators actually use: hot hide glue instead of modern adhesives that can never be undone, shellac and hand-rubbed French polish instead of spray-on modern lacquer, and repair techniques that respect the joinery, the wood, and the history of the piece in front of you.

This is not a book about painting over problems or reaching for the nearest tube of wood filler. It's a complete, honest education in period-correct restoration - how to read a piece's age and construction, when to intervene and when to leave well enough alone, and how to execute repairs that a future restorer could undo just as easily as you made them.

What's inside:

• How to date a piece from its joinery, screws, saw marks, and secondary wood
• Setting up a safe, organized traditional workshop, including chemical and solvent handling
• Working with hot hide glue, casein, and fish glue the way period cabinetmakers did
• Cleaning and reviving a sound old finish before ever reaching for a stripper
• Step-by-step traditional stripping, wood repair, and Dutchman patching
• Repairing mortise-and-tenon, dovetail, and doweled joints without destroying originality
• Veneer repair and traditional hammer veneering
• Shellac mixing and full French polishing technique, with troubleshooting
• Oil, wax, and traditional varnish finishes, and how to choose between them
• Hardware cleaning, sourcing, and dating; basic traditional upholstery foundations
• Long-term care, ethics, documentation, and building a restoration practice