I bought a partly wrecked oak china cabinet off TradeMe for $40 nearly a year ago. Various previous repairs had only partly succeded in keeping the cabinet as useful piece of furniture. It had a broken door frame, cracked glass, loose backboard, broken drawer sides, odd drawer pulls, jamming drawers and it was limping on three legs. Perfect. Could it be rescued?
Broken screws were removed using my vintage Dormer screw extractors.
New oak floating tenons were morticed into the broken door frame to give it strength.
The broken leg was cleaned up ready for a new mounting plate.
 |
After repairs, it was fully stripped down to remove the remains of the old shellac.
After some frustrations with the leadlight glass doors, new period-correct handles were sourced and hidden rare earth magnets were glued in place to keep the doors closed. It was given two coats of Danish oil.
Was it 'worth' the effort? Probably not. Was it satisfying to save from the bonfire? Yes!
