How A 1950s Vanity Is Professionally Restored

• John Price is a woodworker in Windber, Pennsylvania.
• He has been restoring antique furniture and doing custom woodwork for over 10 years.
• He uses a technique using a steam iron and sawdust to repair this 1950s three-mirror vanity.

Following is a transcript of the video.

John Price: Hi, my name is John of John Bear Woodworks, located in Windber, Pennsylvania. I restore antiques and furniture. Today, I am restoring this three-mirror 1950s vanity. Since I knew that this piece had been painted over with several coats of paint, I was just really excited to see what was hidden under there. I start by applying a gel stripper, and I apply that with a brush. And I like to really glob it on. You've got to get it on thick and then let it sit. It can't be dry. It has to stay wet, so it's working. And then, once you let that sit for 15, 20 minutes, you can really start scraping and finding out what you have hiding underneath your projects.

I like to use just this regular run-of-the-mill putty knife. I round the edges on it a little bit so it won't have any sharp edges that will gouge the furniture, and always just take special care, use light pressure, not to gouge, scratch it any more. As those chemicals in the stripper sit on top of that finish, whatever you're stripping, it just liquefies that finish, and it leaves you with this sludge. I typically scrape it right into a metal old paint can. A tip I got one time from an old-timer I used to work with is this sawdust trick. When I apply the sawdust, it soaks up all that stripper, and you're not left with all that gooey mess on there that you need to wipe off or anything. As I'm using this technique, you want to make sure that you go with the grain, just like you would with sanding or scraping or anything. You don't want to go against that grain. Light pressure. You don't want to cause any scratches or gouges to the wood. I'm sanding to remove any of the remaining residue or the scratches that might be in that wood. And you'll really know if there is anything left when you go to apply the stain.

I usually start sanding most any type of wood with a 150, it's a pretty common grit, and then I finish it up with a 220 grit. And this will help to remove any more of the scratches that might have been in the wood and make it really smooth, especially, like, any type of maple or really dense wood is more likely to hold scratches.

Next, I will just use an iron and a wet rag on the wood's surface to remove any of the scratches or dings. I will just move on to some final odds and ends and steps that I take to just do some final touch-ups, removing the scratches, removing any of the last finish that might be remaining, before I do that one last final sanding before staining.

I will use an oil-based stain, that I mix this color to my preference. And I like this reddish tint. I feel like it really brings out that bird's eye maple a lot more. I typically will tell people when I'm working on a piece the red mahogany tends to look a little bit more elegant or refined. Once the stain has had a chance to set up and dry for a couple days, I apply the seal coat of lacquer before I sand that and apply the final topcoat.

It's always nice to see these pieces come back to life for a second life instead of ending up in the dump or out to a curbside. And I just really enjoy this work, and it brings me happiness, and it's good to see that it makes other people happy. He's my handy helper.