Restoration of “A Rare 20th century American Retro painted folding leaf support dining table base, with rectangular glass top.”
Early December I drove to Port Melbourne to meet Linda and her sweet dog Boof, and see their sad damaged table base.
The rectangular glass top shattered when a hot plate was resting on a supposed safety mat, purchased on Amazon.
The black painted base was damaged in many places, many were deeper than gouges and scratches. Remarkably no guests were hurt when the top suddenly imploded!
I originally quoted for my friend David Glynn Davies to touch out. For 35 years David has kindly restored many dozens of painted pieces for me. Some you would never recognise the before and afters. But once we picked up the table, the amount of work required was too much to ask him, as was more than just a few patches and a touch out. The table deserved a complete make over, so we did.
Eddie and I restored this unique table base in many stages, off and on over several weeks.
The weight and awkwardness of moving the base was hard during the entire process, I completely under quoted, but would have just about done for free, as the job was so challenging and in the end incredibly rewarding, I’d happily do it again.
After Eddie filled and patched dozens of chips and gouges, I cut back the base overall and coloured every piece of filler. I then cut back again and proceeded to paint in sections, first the interior, then the folded leaves in their entirety, then the stepped base.
Three times and covering up the surrounding areas every time, to stop the overspray messing the finish.
Became quite easy by the end, but the so called satin finish was too shiny and the old worn damages still stood out. So I decided to cut back the entire finish, hard! Then I sealed in a lacquer to soften the finish and disguise the remaining visible damages. This was a huge gamble, so before doing this, I prepared a large sample of timber and gave the same amount of coats over a ten day period, allowing drying time to be the same. BTW, this also gave the painted table base a lot more time to firm up. Then I cut back one final time and lacquer finished. I came in the following day and was so happy to see the finish was absolutely perfect. So I did the exact same to the base, and once again in three stages over three days, I couldn’t have wished for a better result.
So many hours I lost count, but wow!
Then replacing the glass, that was a huge task on its own.
I contacted W Bremner and Sons, I’ve been dealing with them for over 35 years. They were originally for many decades on the corner of Grange and Dandenong Roads, then moved out to Noble Park. But they had closed, I only used them last December for two coffee table tops, and perfect as always, oh and affordable.
I had based my quotation on their prices. But searching for a reputable, fairly priced glass table top maker these days is like taking a lottery! My sister Maxine had this task. If I wrote one of the conversations she had with
a glass supplier, nobody would believe someone in business would speak to a customer in that way!
I’ll tell you the story if you call me….
His Google ratings were like 1✨ even lower than mine!
(Pays to keep one’s political views private 😉) or thou shall cancel thy enemy…
Anyway, she didn’t contribute to his collection of I’d say factual complaints!
Also some of the prices were beyond acceptable. God knows how they actually sell any glass.. anyway, she eventually located a good bloke that did as he said and at a fair price.
So the glass was delivered this morning, three men to lift onto Linda’s home and it was raining! OMG, trying to dry off and balance between three was a massive undertaking. But we eventually got there. That could be a short story on its own.
So at the end, Linda and Boof were very happy vegemites and we all lived happily ever after…
