Thursday, March 22, 2012

Heywood Wakefield M197G Wishbone style table refinish...Let the saga begin...part 2 of ??

For those of you who appreciate Heywood Wakefield furniture pieces manufactured during the period from the late 40's through the early sixties, this post is for you! I'm going to give you (for free!) my take on the proper procedure for refinishing this particular piece of furniture.
Some have said to me, hey, A Mod, why are you giving away your secrets? Isn't this counter productive to you getting jobs? Trust me, I started this process ten years ago and I don't think any of my advise will adversely effect my business as far as future clients. You won't learn all I have to share in a couple of posts and frankly, I really don't mind sharing some tips. I know there a lot of you out there that need some advise and prefer to go the DIY route. You have to start somewhere.
I love anything that has to do with mid-century modern, but for those of you who follow along, I specialize in H/W repair and refinishing. We recently took in a M197G wishbone table for refinishing (see our last post for the starting point) which I guess could be considered 'part 1'. I'm going to share with you my normal procedure for this piece.
If you have a short attention span, have little patience and time for long term projects, no space and not some basic tools and would prefer immediate gratification, I could safely say this post may not be up your alley. It may however give you a greater appreciation of what it takes for the job at hand! And you may even end up being a client if you'd like me to take care of your pieces :)

With that said. lets get started...





Here we are bottoms up. This is going to be the starting point for this or any other H/W refinish tear down. General rule of thumb...taking apart, start from the bottom. Putting back together start from the top and work back to the bottom.
I can't stress too much on the importance of labeling where each piece comes together and making sure to label all the screws and other relevent hardware for location on your piece. Tape screws together for particular applications and label them, along with making sure to mark where each piece was removed from, in whatever markings works for you to remember. I normally use either a number or letter system that is hidden under the reconstruct that will be easy to decipher when I reassemble.



I normally mark the drop leaves under the hinge points. It may seem redundant to mark each hinge, but in the sanding process, it's easy to accidentely sand off some of your original marks. Better safe than forgetful...the difference in an 1/8" in screw length can put an incorrectly placed piece of hardware right through one of your newly refinsihed tops or split another piece. Take your time and make sure it's right the first time...Same goes for piece placement...these pieces, although milled at a factory, were hand assembled by humans not machines. Screw placement was done by hand and not a computer and each piece has some variations. Put it back where you took it apart from, and it will save you a bunch of headaches reassembling!


When you have taken apart as much H/W as I have, you will find situations where you have removed all the obvious screws that seem to be holding pieces together and it still won't budge. Don't try and rip these pieces loose as there is likely something you missed. Granted, there are some pieces that have had a bit of glue applied and may need a little help breaking free (normally end table legs), but if a quick pop from a rubber mallet doesn't break it free, there's another cause. All of the wishbone tables I've encountered have a screw through the side apron to the outside pedestals. These are covered by a flush wood plug and as they are behind the butterfly support are not obvious. After you have clipped your tables "wings", remove the butterfly supports and you should be able to see where this screw is located. The easiest way to remove these plugs and other flush mount plugs found on a lot of other projects is to run a course thread drywall screw directly through the center of the plug. With a bit of luck, the screw will hit the top of the existing culprit screw and will back most, if not all of the plug out of its location. This is a lot cleaner removal than attempting to "dig" the plug out and will normally inflict a lot less damage to your piece. Even if it doesn't come out completely intact, you will have a lot easier time removing the remnants...this particular "tip" is great for all kinds of applications...




As of the the night before last, I had the tables drop leaves removed and the two outside pedestals taken off before my drill battery gave up the ghost and had to be put on the charger. I normally keep a backup charged, but after going through multiple sets of batteries, have opted to just replace one at a time as they die. It's gotten cost prohibitive and if you don't use every single day, these don't seem to hold charges as well and although I use one regularly, I can afford to wait an hour or so for charging. I was close to shutting it down for the evening anyway. Got back on it last night though...







Last pedestal removed, table aprons dismantled and marked...and we are ready to begin the fun of taking off our projects old "clothes". Here's a better pic of the steel gear mechanism for this table.
The first time I refinished this particular table, I took more completely apart at great time, expense and headache. I actually took the wishbone areas of the pedestal apart (not recommended). I've learned more than a few lessons on how far to go as to what you "really" need to tear down and still do a great job! In my humble opinion, this is as far as you need to go for disassembly for your successful refinishing.
We had some really needed rain this evening that allowed me to get this post done without feeling too guilty about not getting more accomplished. Post #3 to come soon for those interested! I think I'll title the next post something along the lines of the "bare" facts. Catchy?
As always, thanks for taking the time to take a look...







16 comments:

  1. Lordy! Do you have any tips on *light* refinishing of a Heywood Wakefield Ashcraft? Both tables I got in my 75$ deal are in need of a brush up and I am petrified to do it.

    Check out my pieces on my blog. http://veravonvixen.blogspot.com - My mom knows a bit about refinishing, but I don't want to ruin them
    'antique-roadshow-style'

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    1. I took a look at your tables on your site, but it was hard to tell how badly they were stained. I'll shoot you an e-mail off line and maybe you can send along some better pics.

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  2. I really enjoy the DIY focused refinishing/disassembly articles. Thanks for the tip on how to get the plugs out. I recently acquired a 3753 surfboard table that needs refinished. The plugs had me stumped. Great tip. Thanks!

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  3. Necessity is the mother of invention and boy do you run into some needed inventing working on H/W. There are some sizes of H/W plugs you can't buy off the shelf and you sometimes need to expand the original holes. Is your table the C3753G or the M3753G? I have one of the newer M3753s (only made in "52" for the west coast market)in storage that someone had painted a pale cream color. Heathens!!!!!! I'll get around to saving it one of these days :)

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    1. Mine is a C3753G. I didn't pay much for it, but it is in pretty rough shape. It has some significant water damage on the rear "leg". I'm debating on how to repair the damage.

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    2. Hey BGG, your table was manufactured from 1940-1944. It's pretty close in design to the newer version, but looks a little wider in the catalog pics than the newer version. Still a great looking table and popular. What type of water damage does this have? What comes to mind is either "tanic" staining from standing water or panel separation. Send me some pics of the piece and maybe I can give you some advise. amodernline@gmail.com You can also contact through my website at www.amodernline.com.

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    3. It looks like this table may have sat in water at some point. The the bottom 1/2" of the rear leg has some rot. I'll send you some pictures this weekend. Thanks for the help!

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  4. I have a workshop and plenty of tools, but I fall into the category of "little patience, little time and a need for instant gratification," so I decided a long time ago that refinishing furniture is not my thing.

    Still, I'm fascinated by the incredible transformations wrought by you and other good refinishers, so I watch your projects with a tremendous amount of enthusiasm.

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    1. Hey Dana, Sometimes you have to pick your battles and do what you enjoy and hopefully excel at, and this is my particular passion! Hopefully these posts on refinishing H/W will help potential customers realize the amount of work that goes into bringing their pieces up to speed and help out some of my DIY readers with their particular "adventure". I stay plenty busy, but enjoy sharing too! Love and read all your posts even if I don't comment!

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  5. You can normally tell quality furniture at a quick glance just walking past it, but when I find something decent I always flip it over or pull drawers out to find a name. Kroehler and Lane are by far the most common names I see because they employed other furniture makers to build for them i.e. a pair of LANE Gunstock Walnut side tables built by Knechtel of Kitchener,ON that I have. I've never seen the Heywood Wakefield name while out and about but it pops up in local Classifieds once in a blue moon. I know early on there was a plant in Orillia,ON that built rattan baby carriages but other than that I find nothing. Do you know if Heywood Wakefield was ever built in Canada? I don't imagine they would import from the U.S.

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    1. Hey Dave, As far as I'm aware H/W did not have any plants in Canada. The main plant was in Gardner, MA and they did have other plants here in the U.S. I think every single piece that I've had or worked on over the years has had the circular eagle logo with the Est. 1826 stamped somewhere on the piece.

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  6. Just from the pics of the underside showing what looks like the slide mech for adding the leaf you can tell it's quality construction. It's interesting looking furniture that's for sure and I imagine the light finish is appealing to most Mid Century buffs. Being in the north where there is a wide variety of hard woods I've always been kinda partial to Oak and Mission Style furniture.

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  7. I have one of these. The top & leaves are immaculate, but one of the legs is broken, and apparently unrepairable.

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  8. Vicki, If you can send me a pic of the leg I may be able to determine if it can be repaired. My e-mail is amodernline@gmail.com

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  9. Hi David, first I want to thank you for your time and your friendly help. If I was in your area, I'd have my stuff to you in no time. Thanks for pointing to this project too, because one of my purchases this year has been a wheat 197 too! Its by far the best condition of the pieces we've gotten, and the last on the refinish list. We've already taken it apart once, to get it into our apartment, so I did a 11pm crash course in HW table construction. I'm following up on your stripping and finishing technique, since I may be working on those 'sable' cateye chairs (we bought them for the table). The guy I bought the table from (and the Sculptura chest/mirror and sideboard) had no less than 2 of these 197 model tables along with a large Rio dresser, two knee hole tables, etc. And I took home the table/Sideboard/Dresser for 600$. I also have two 791 end tables that do duty with a Lane swivel table in our living room!

    Again, thanks for all the help in the past day. I'll definitely spread the word about you and your stuff!

    -Bill

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    1. Hey Bill, Thanks for the compliments and I'm happy to help out with others projects, especially those that reside outside my area. Obviously I can't do everyones pieces and just appreciate the fact that there are quite a few out there that love the furniture. Mid century and H/W in particular tend to be a niche market and sadly, most people trend towards the newer disposable junk that's churned out now by foreign factories. Profit trumped quality starting in the late 70's and only got worse from there!

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