The cedar chest is finished, or as finished as it's going to get at this point. I had planned to just do the top lid to see how that turned out before I thought about doing the rest of the chest. I ran into an issue I wasn't sure how to deal with. I have a few pictures to show what I am talking about.
The first two photos are the underside of the lid.
With that little information I found out this chest is about 70 years old. They were made in the 40's and 50's. I have some cedar oil I used on the inside trying to restore the 'smell' since sanding did very little. After two coats there still is not much smell.
This is the lid and what I was starting with. I had hoped not to have to sand, but I determined quickly that wasn't going to work. The finish and wood was in too bad of condition.
As you can see it had a very dull finish and was pretty marred up. I had already hit it with the orbital sander lightly one time. It just made it worse. And the sander was getting some sort of buildup on the sand paper. I was using a 220 grit. Steel wool prior to this did nothing.
So out comes the belt sander. I figured that it would handle the job a little faster along with taking care of that build up. I used a 120 grit. That buildup?
This is what happened then:
Apparently that black looking substance is something in the wood. It just smeared it all over the lid and gummed up my brand new sanding belt. I determined that is coming from all the dark knots in the wood. Is it still seeping cedar sap after all these years? No idea really. So sanding stopped. I was just making a mess. I tried several things to get the residue off the wood and nothing at all worked, not even something the wifely unit had called Goo Gone. Then I tried Goof Off, what did I have to lose at this point? It worked, with some very vigorous rubbing.
However, I just could not sand it anymore like this. So the top is a lot rougher to the touch so it won't have that glass like surface I wanted. Even with 10 coats of polyurethane with the last coast being poured on the wood so it would build up a nice surface. Still not enough. But it does have a great color now. The rest of the chest will remain as it is for now. I don't want to tackle that until I figure out what is going on with that wood 'leaking?'
Happy Trails
2 comments:
Yep, that's 'sap' leaking out because of the heat buildup. When I redid my mother's cedar chest, I had to do a LOT of sanding to get the previous layers off, after I used stripper to get most of the previous varnish off. I'm not sure what to say at this point, since it isn't mine, but I wish you the best, whichever way you go.
Old NFO-Thanks, I suspected that it was sap, thanks for confirming. Not sure what I am going to do at this point. I may let it sit as it for now until I get the motivation back to tackle it again.
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