Articles By Syndicated Columnist
Dan Thomas
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Improvement Inside And Out
Repairing
Furniture
You can treat scratches on natural wood or antique finishes by polishing
them with a mixture of equal amounts of turpentine and boiled linseed oil.
Apply with a clean, soft, damp cloth.
Any scratch made by a match can be removed by rubbing with a lemon wedge.
There are several ways to remove white spots, such as those left by wet
drinking glasses. Rub them with toothpaste on a damp cloth, or rub them with
paste furniture polish, any mild abrasive, or oil. Appropriate abrasives are
salt, ashes, pumice, or soda: suitable oils are petroleum jelly, olive oil,
lemon-oil furniture polish, or cooking oil.
Paper stuck to a polished table can be lifted after saturating the paper
with cooking oil.
You can tighten a loose furniture leg caster by wrapping a rubber band
around its stem and reinserting it.
When wood fibers in a piece of furniture are merely bent, but not cut, you
can straighten out any dents with an iron-set on medium- and a damp cloth.
Place the damp cloth on a dent, hold the iron on it until the cloth begins to
dry, re dampen the cloth, and repeat the process as needed.
A cabinet or dresser knob can be tightened by dipping its screw or screws
in fingernail polish or shellac and reinserting the knob. When the polish or
shellac hardens, the screws will be set and the knobs will be tight.
Wooden drawers can be unstuck by rubbing contact surfaces with a bar of
soap or a candle.
Decals will easily lift off painted furniture if you sponge them with
vinegar.
To tighten wobbly wicker furniture, wash it outdoors with hot soapy water,
rinse it with a hose, and let it air-dry. The wood and cane will shrink and
tighten.
Soggy wicker or cane seats can be similarly tightened by sponging them with
hot water.
Cigarette burns can usually be rubbed out of wooden furniture with very
fine sandpaper or steel wool. If necessary, color the area with stain pens or
shoe polish to match the rest of the surface.
If you need to pound apart sections of a chair that needs re-gluing, a soft
mallet will provide enough power but will be much kinder to the wood than a hammer.
Thread can serve as packing around a chair rung before it is glued back
into place.
When disassembling a piece of furniture for repair, label or number the
parts with pieces of masking tape, you will then know how to put them back
together. Make a list describing which part of the piece of furniture, the
number represents.
If loose cane on a rattan chair is snagging your clothing or stockings,
tame it with clear tape or blunt it by dabbing on clear nail polish..
Instead of straining your back when rearranging a heavy piece of furniture,
simply position a child's roller skate or skateboard under each end, and then
wheel the piece to the new location.
