Refinishing a Vintage Dresser

About seventeen years ago, when I bought my first house in America, I acquired a few bits of furniture as part of the sale. Most of it was crap the previous owners couldn't be arsed to move, but there was one nice piece in there that I still have. Mostly it has been used as a bedroom dresser, although it was also a TV stand at one point, and I used it in my office for storage when we lived in Berkeley. This is what it looks like with two thirds of the drawers removed:

Over the years it has suffered some damage, most notably at the right side of the top panel, but there are dings and scratches all over the piece.

At the start of the Christmas vacation, I emptied the dresser and, with some help, moved it downstairs to the workshop. I started by sanding the top panel to 120 grit; this made relative quick work of the varnish and wood stain.

There were numerous imperfections that cannot be removed this way without sanding through the veneer:

The rest of the cabinet was sanded to 120 grit next...a lot of the sanding had to be done by hand which was super tedious, but Amy Sheep was keen to help and that kept me motivated.

The next step is treatment of the top panel with an oxalic acid solution. This is a technique often referred to as "wood bleach" which is very effective for removing stains from wood. After a thorough application, particularly in the stained areas, the dresser was left to dry overnight.

The next day all the stains were gone. The oxalic acid residue was removed by rinsing the top of the dresser with copious amounts of water and left to dry. The cabinet was always a two-tone piece, which we intend to keep. The sections which will be darker were all sanded to 220 grit in preparation for staining:

We tried our best to tape off the areas where the darker stain meets the lighter stain and then applied Varathane classic black™ in the appropriate areas.

Overall, it came out well:

There was some bleed where the tape didn't quite perform as hoped for; these areas will have to be sanded later.

While the stain was drying, we moved on to the drawers. The three (3) flat-front drawers were straight forward to sand down to 120:

The others were a bit more complicated. I started with the raised perimeters. One down, eight to go...

That's better....

The Dewalt™ random orbital sander is too big to fit inside the inlaid drawer fronts, so I broke out the pneumatic sander I typically use in the garage. The pad size ranges from one to three inches in diameter, so I was able to get right into the corners.  

The tiny bits I couldn't get to were sanded by hand, and then all the drawers were sanded again to 220 grit:

There were a number of examples of damage at the drawers including chips and dings, several loose dovetails and one broken runner. All such issues were marked with blue tape at the initial sanding stage, and then I worked through all the various fixes.

By this point in the project the black stain at the dark sections of the cabinet was long since dry, and the small sections of bleed over mentioned above had been sanded clean. But there was a problem! While using oxalic acid on the top panel successfully removed all the stains, the moisture also lifted a section of the veneer. I tried to glue the lifted section back down and clamped it overnight.

It sort of worked, but there was still a section of the veneer which was proud. Keeping the very thin veneer and making this area flat would be extremely difficult: 

Instead, I sanded all the way through the veneer until the top of the cabinet was perfectly flat. Then I went down to MacBeath Hardwood in Berkeley and picked up a half sheet of flat sawn white oak veneer. Back at the shop the veneer was trimmed to the precise length and about half an inch wider than needed:

The underside of the veneer and the top of the cabinet were covered with contact cement and left to dry; the veneer was very porous so two coats of cement were needed. 

The main section was installed first:

The end pieces were added with perpendicular grain alignment to replicate the original cabinet top:

There is an overhang of about 0.25 inches at the perimeter of the veneer which will be removed with the router and a flush trim bit after the contact cement has fully cured.

There were tiny gaps where the sections of veneer meet which were eradicated with white oak wood filler: 

Time for the rest of the stain. The sides and front-facing edges of the cabinet were stained with Varathane English chestnut. The veneer we used on the top of the cabinet was a slightly different shade to the remainder of the piece, so this area was stained with a 1:1 mixture of Varathane gunstock and English chestnut which gave a closer match.

Came out nice:

The drawer fronts were stained with Varathane English chestnut:

The brass hardware was cleaned up with a mixture of brasso™ and two (2) tins of elbow grease:

After the stain was cured, we applied three coats of water-based urethane "Enduro-VarII" flat from General Finishes.  The drawers part way through the finishing process:

This is a few weeks later after suitable curing time:

Paul Circus and the Swimming Trip

I'm a homebody. Given the choice of going out or not, 96 out of 100 times I'd always choose not. I don't mind going to work, or making a trip to the store if I need something, or giving one of the bread snappers a ride somewhere, maybe even a ride back.....but after that I usually have to be crowbarred out of my comfort zone. 

Yes, I like my house!

This is not a new phenomenon; I've always been this way. As a youngster I hated how my Mother would insist on "going shopping" almost every day. I couldn't understand why we didn't just do all of the "shopping" on one or two days, and then stay home the rest of the week. 

When I was a bit older, the school holidays were the worst, especially summer! As I mentioned, my Mom was not one for loafing around the house, and she was even less accommodating to anyone else who might want to do so. We were constantly "going out" doing things that got in the way of me spending time in my bedroom. And more often than not it was stuff I didn't particularly like doing. Such as going swimming or heading to the movies to see non-classics like "The Dark Crystal."

One sunny day in about 1982 it was determined that the afternoon was ripe for a trip to the swimming baths in Purley (it's closed down now, a relic of the early 80's that will probably never reopen). At the time Paul Circus used to keep his swimming gear - goggles, styrofoam float and swimming cap - in a bright orange bag which he hung at the bottom of the stairs by the front door. This made it easy to grab a clean towel and a pair of what we used to call "swimming trunks," and throw them into his bag on the way out of the house. 

But, on this particular day, he only managed to complete a third of his task - he left the house with just the bag, but no trunks and no towel. And, while this turn of events escaped my Mom's attention, it did not escape mine. In fact, as our car was pulling out of the driveway, instead of thinking glum thoughts about swimming, I was keeping my fingers crossed that our trip to the pool would have to be aborted. 

I don't remember exactly how my brother's error was discovered. I feel like it was probably between the parking garage and the pool, but what I do recall is the aftermath. Paul Circus was treated to the twelve-inch extended version of "I'm Really Pissed Off With You" by Our Mom. She was so mad that we had to drive straight back to the house, and she was definitely not in the mood to return to the pool. Mom told Paul Circus that it was his fault that we had to cancel the swimming trip, and she also predicted that he would "forget your head if it wasn't connected."

The main reason why this day is so memorable is because Paul Circus was the Golden Child; Mom never got annoyed with him. The other is because I got my own way, we didn't go swimming, and I didn't have to do anything to achieve it. I just sat back and let events unfold. The only downside was that I had to keep my enjoyment a secret.....until now!

Swapping the Engine in the '67 F250 Part 2

After a few days of celebrating Christmas, working on other projects and keeping out of the rain, I was ready to get back to the F250. It was still a bit dull weather-wise, but I decided what the heck, we'll move the truck in front of the garage. There are a couple of reasons why: the driveway slopes less immediately in front of the garage, and I will have half the distance to walk back and forth to my toolbox. To achieve this, I had Amy Sheep tow the F250 up to the street with the Toyota, and then I rolled it back down the hill into the appropriate spot. It took several attempts due to the tow rope coming undone and the truck being super difficult to maneuver with only manual steering. 

By the time we were done it was looking quite a bit brighter:

I got a new creeper for Christmas, and I broke it in by sliding under the truck and disconnecting the driveshaft from the transmission. I also disconnected the speedometer cable, removed the bolts from the transmission crossmember and unbolted the transmission from the bell housing. From inside the cab, I removed the shifter boot and the stick. Then I crept back under the truck and drained the transmission fluid. It was getting dark by this point, but there was just enough light left to remove the radiator. This may not be necessary, but will give me more room for maneuver when it's time to lift the engine out, and will prevent the radiator from being damaged again. 

The next day I had Amy Sheep on hand to help. We started by delicately as delicately as possible dropping the transmission with the floor jack....on a slope...and then we removed the hood:

The engine leveler was attached to the front and back of both cylinder heads using a mixture of 7/16 and 1/2-inch bolts. Only two (2) attachment points are necessary, but we used four (4) which gives a little bit more control.

Hooked up the engine hoist:

This is after....it's too dangerous to mess about with a camera while the engine is on the hoist.

I moved the engine into the garage and left it on the dolly while we had a celebratory ham sandwich for lunch. This is the first time I've pulled an engine without an experienced friend on hand to supervise, so I was quite proud of myself....especially because we did it without breaking anything or hurting ourselves. After luncheon I removed the bell housing and the clutch. Getting the fly wheel off was a fight that I had to win alone since Amy Sheep was otherwise occupied.

After that I mounted the engine on a stand and turned it upside down. Since I have two (2) identical engine blocks, I needed to find a why of differentiating between them that doesn't refer to the date of manufacture or the displacement. I came up with "Orange" for the engine that I took out of the truck since it was mounted on an orange stand:

The engine that came from my friend Ninja and will be going back into the truck has a yellow stand, so this one became "Yellow".

The engine blocks are identical, but the shape of the oil pans is quite different; the orange engine has a valley-shaped pan which I will need to transfer to the yellow engine to make it fit into the truck. I also plan to transfer the water pump, the timing pointer and the fuel pump as well as all the other parts I removed before I pulled the engine. The HUGE advantage of having two identical blocks is that all the parts are interchangeable.

Different pan = different oil pickup. What is most interesting is that the oil pickup for the valley pan mounts to a stud that is also a main cap bolt:

I harvested the stud from the orange engine, and at this point I am pretty much done with it. So the orange engine was parked on the other side of the garage, and I moved the yellow engine into pole position.

I want to change the front and rear main seals on the yellow engine while they are accessible, so I had to pull the harmonic balancer and the timing chain cover. I was lucky that the bolt which holds the balancer to the crankshaft was missing from the yellow engine, so removing the balancer with my wheel puller was a piece of cake...I can either buy a replacement bolt, or fight to remove the one on the orange engine. The thing is, the last time I tried to get one of these bolts out, I managed to tip the engine stand over and nearly crushed my left leg. I did get the bolt out though. 

This is the bare yellow engine with the timing cover and oil pan removed and the front of the crank shaft visible:

I pulled one main cap and one rod cap and inspected the bearings. There was some wear but nothing serious: 

After inspection, I put some assembly lube on the bearings and re-installed both caps. I've been taught that there are only two (2) places a bolt should ever be: on the bench or torqued to spec. All the information for rebuilding these engines and all the various torque specifications are contained in Tom Munroe's books and probably other places too; which book you need depends on your block's displacement. For the '74 302 the spec is 60-70 lb.ft for the main cap bolts and 25 lb.ft for the rod cap bolts.

The next step was to pull the third main cap and replace one of the bolts with the stud that I need for  attaching the oil pick up. Before:

After:

You probably think the next bit is installing the oil pickup and oil pan....well, you'd be wrong. The next step was cleaning all the gasket residue and other gunk off the mating surface, and then I carefully masked off the section that would be covered by the oil pan:

The block was rotated the other way up, and the valley was also masked off. I covered the timing chain with a rag, and stuffed paper towels around the edge. 

After that, I gave all the exposed sections a really good cleaning, first with soapy water and a wire toothbrush, and then with acetone and rags. I removed as much crud, grease and loose paint from the block as I possibly could. When it was as clean as I could get it, I masked off everything I don't want to paint, and shoved small pieces of paper towel into the spark plug holes. The last person that painted this block also painted the area behind the oil filter, so I decided to stick with tradition.

Stay tuned for painting and re-assembly!