My wife acquired her mom's old cedar chest that was a wedding present to her back in the 50's. It had been in her basement and over the years seen its share of floods and damage related to it as well as a lot of wear and tear. It was mfg. by Lane and the SN# comes back as 11/11/1955 date. It was originally a yellow color that is just plain ugly and nothing we would ever put in the house. Since it has no true value, I figured lets at least get it looking like something she could use. So ; off we go with the belt sander and 60 grit , then 80 grit on random orbit sander , 150 grit and 220 grit. Amazing that the actual veneer under the paint looks great all things considered , the actual way they lined up the grain is nicely done. I had no choice other than make some trim pieces and cover the bottom couple inches to hide the water damage and missing pieces along the bottom , I made pieces to replace what was missing but there is no way to do anything else since it is covered with veneer ; so trim it is. The legs were shot and one side completely missing , I copied what I had and made some new legs. Sorry but I am not the best as far as taking pictures but here are a couple. One is just the top sanded but the bottom is still the yellow , the second is after it has been sanded and trim just taped in place to give me some kind of direction as to where to go from here. I also have pieces cut for corner trim not shown. I will try to make sure I get some better pictures as I move along.
Thanks to both of you. It certainly won't be perfect but useable. Having no value as far as $ goes it was worth a shot. Before I started my plan was to cover it in cedar from the mill and skin it sort of like a veneer. Figured why not sand it first , if I skinned it I would have had to sand it some anyway. Better to be lucky than good sometimes.
A quick set of legs off what was left from the old one has a pattern from a piece of oak ahead, laying around I’ll glue it up and drill some holes for some hidden screws from the bottom over the next couple days
Made up the corner trim last night , forgot to take pictures ; as usual. I hope to find some time this weekend to get it finished up and ready for polyurethane. I will make sure to take a couple pictures. Thanks everyone for the kind words.
If it wasn't her moms it would have been gone. Where it came from is the only thing that saved it from the dump. It will not be perfect to say the least but useable for her , that was the goal.
We have a similar Lane chest, we bought it from.the estate auction of thisnhouses contents before we moved in... Our chest also has what seems to be a horrible yellowish color veneer on it. Clarification- it seems to be veneer, it is definitely horrible. The wife tried removing it some with an iron and wet rag,that didn't really work. I got a heat gun to try to loosen the veneer, but we haven't tackled it anymore.... In your pics, are you adding your own cedar to the outside, or is that what was under the veneer?
No, that is the original veneer that was under the ugly yellow I started with the belt sander to get most of it off and then finished off with the random orbit, 80, 150, and 220 The original veneer underneath was actually done really nice. It’s a shame they would ever paint that I had to add the trim to hide the water damage on part of the bottom and made a new set of legs, there was only one of those when I got it I’m going to leave the back and the inside original. The back is cedar and not covered with veneer so I will leave it. Try sanding it. You have nothing to lose and might be surprised what you find underneath.
Eckie here’s just a couple more of what I’ve done so far You can see in the one picture that the veneer was actually nicely done. It’s a shame it was covered up with yellow paint, and there’s one of the original back I’m not touching that
