Eastlake carved furniture

[myxpykalix]

I was given this piece along with a rocker and single chair all in the same style. I was told they thought this might be Eastlake furniture, but my research says most of his carvings were more like Vcarvings instead of relief carvings.

Does anyone recognize what this is? I am thinking about taking my scanner and copying the carved parts to try to reproduce them on the bot.

It looks like a couple different species of wood. The backrest looks kind of like mahogany but the armrest looks like it has patterns like walnut.

What would be the best thing to use to clean this up with? I don't want to alter the finish by sanding or using any kind of abrasive but want to wash it some way to clean all the years of dirt off of it.

[Chuck Keysor]

The piece you have is some pretty low end furniture from 1900 to 1910, very easily from a Sears or Wards catalog. It is not Eastlake as you suspected. Eastlake as a name has a high profile in the minds of the general public, so when people don't know, they guess Eastlake. I have attached a photo of a sofa that is more to the Eastlake end of the spectrum. And I have also attached some photos of a pretty classic Eastlake sideboard with very typical incised carvings for your reference.

The piece you have would have originally been finished a very dark brown to even black, that would have obscured all the various woods. And not being critical, but the design of this piece is not very special. But even worse, it has already been stripped, so there isn't anything original in the finish to preserve. At auction if all original, this would maybe be a $50 piece. In its present state, it wouldn't even get $5.

To see good Victorian furniture, check out www.GrandViewAuction.com (http://www.GrandViewAuction.com), or www.rarevictoriana.com (http://www.rarevictoriana.com) After you check out some of the higher end antiques, I suspect you will not be so interested in your present piece. And there are great photos on the antique websites, many featuring some great carvings to be inspired by. Have fun! Chuck

[myxpykalix]

Chuck,
This is why I ask here about a variety of things, because we have people with a variety of knowledge. Sounds like you know what you are talking about.... "In its present state, it wouldn't even get $5."

Maybe that was why it was free:rolleyes:

I have an appreciation for old stuff even if it isn't Eastlake or particularly valuable it has a interesting design. THe question then becomes do i want to take the time to restore, at the least clean it up?
In the least I think I would want to clean it up to where i can, if i choose to, refinish or at least clean it to a state where i can see its real good.

Do you have any advice on the best thing to use to clean it down to the wood or to the finish?
I will check out your links and I appreciate your advice.

[Chuck Keysor]

Hello Jack. Sorry for my slow reply.

As to the mechanics of how to refinish your piece, the high profile guy in the antique world is Bruce Johnson. He publishes columns in various magazines, and has written a number of books which are widely referenced. Check out his website AskBruceJohnson.com. His refinishing books are somewhat hidden on his website, I would assume because they are old in his catalog of books. But they are good books on refinishing.

As to the question of should you be spending time refinishing your piece, that is a complicated question. I personally wouldn't invest time in it since it doesn't seem that there is any family history attached to it, and it is a pretty plain piece. But it may serve you well as a piece to practice on.

If you choose to practice, I have attached two photos for your reference. They show two cabinets of very similar style and vintage. One shows both pieces, and the other photo shows an up close detail. But one has been professionally refinished, and the dark one has its original finish. Note on the refinished piece, that all the grain is clearly in evidence.

At one level, the grain looks interesting, but look again, and ask, does this grain pattern add to the design of this piece? I would say that it doesn't, and to me it would easily suggest that the piece was originally finished like the dark cabinet, in a way that would have completely masked the grain, so the cabinet maker didn't care about how the grain added or detracted from his design. In your case, the dark finish was probably originally used as well. That was quite common in that era, where cheaper woods when darkly stained generally assumed at least a general appearance of walnut, (which has long been a high end furniture making material). The dark stain on your piece would unify the design by making all the different woods look the same.

By the way, I took these pictures at an auction today, specifically to answer your question. But, as I suggest you may not need to spend time on redoing your furniture, I should tell myself to not go to antique auctions! I bought a PRT Alpha 144 x 60 16 months ago, and still haven't finished reassembling it! I have a seat of Mastercam with its ART package, and I haven't learned how to run it yet! So if you lived in Elgin Illinois, I'd show you the antique auctions, and you could show me how to get going with my Shopbot! I think you are in the better position.

Thanks, Chuck

[myxpykalix]

Chuck you can certainly use me as an excuse to go to the auctions or to buy new tools....i'll back you up anytime with a note for the boss if you need it:rolleyes:

Thanks for the picture. I have always heard that it is always better to leave an original finish on an antique or it devalues it. In this case because the furniture holds no great value, it might be fun to experiment with a finish.

I used to live right outside Chicago in a small town in Indiana called Whiting (the home of Standard Oil and Inland Steel).

I have the same size Prt Alpha with an indexer. You need to get on to getting that baby up and running. I'll be happy to help (long distance) if i can.

[Chuck Keysor]

Jack, you can help me, in an inspirational way. I have attached two photos showing some types of things I would like to be able to do with my Shopbot.

The first image is another picture from the auction on Friday. It is a detail of a bronze plaque from a piece of nice Victorian furniture. I would like to be able to make, maybe not this exact object, but things similar to it. And I need these to look as good as this original. Mind you, I don't want you to make this thing of course, but how close can someone come to reproducing this type of product? I am looking at large versions, for hanging on walls for example.

The second image is of a wood cut by Albrecht Durer, a German artist who lived around 1500. I would like to be able to make a large copy of this, engraved, with all the black lines being infilled with black paint. Again, this would be large, for hanging on a wall. No relief work on this one, just flat, with engraved lines. How well could this be reproduced? I want to make a very clean copy, as big as 4 by 8 feet, that could be looked at up close without appology.

Please comment based upon whatever software you use, and then what you understand others have been able to do, for both the relief plaque, and the Durer wood cut.

As I noted earlier, I have a full seat of Mastercam X-15 with their Art package. With the Art package, you can supposedly suck in a photo, and then turn it into a relief image, and then it will generate the tool path commands to run the Shopbot. So that would be used to make a copy of the bronze plaque.

Mastercam itself has a raster to vector function built in, and that is what I would expect to use for making the Durer wood cut Rhino. But, before I bought my software, I tried to get Mastercam to show me they could convert this image to vectors, and then tool path it. Well, they couldn't, things kept crashing, but they said, well, once you are set up, we will get it going. I stupidly figured that if I spent $10,000 for this software, that it would kick me into gear and get me learning my software, prior to buying my router. Well, I was really wrong. I bought the software, maybe 7 years ago, and have been paying annual maintenance on it ever since, and have never used it! So, I am locked into Mastercam. I was sold on it, because I took a semester class in it at my community college, and felt it was the way to go. And, at that time, I checked out ARTCAM, and found it very confusing. (But they greatly upgraded it shortly after I bought my Mastercam.) And, Mastercam seems to have not taken hold in the sign making market, even though they are supposedly kings of traditional machinist type CNC applications. So, their Art product hasn't been upgraded for years. But, maybe it is good, I just don't know.

I also took a semester class in Photoshop, and am pretty good at it, as I love to work on pictures. And I took a semester class in Illustrator, and did well in the class, but haven't touched it in over two years, so would probably have to start over! It never seemed as intuitive as Photoshop, which I love, and use a lot. And, lastly, I have Rhino 4, that I have only played with a little, figuring I would need to make my own models. I used to use Design CAD at lot at work, before we got bought by GE, and they layed us all off!

Hey, sorry for the ramble, but rambling will allow you to comment more knowlegably. And you will be able to tell me if I can make what I bought my Shopbot and Mastercam for, if I get my self going!

Thanks for your advise, Chuck

[steve_g]

Chuck:
I have no experience with Mastercam but here is a rendering of your Rhino using PartWorks “Fit vector to bitmap” tool and routing with a V carve strategy. I do this with line drawings all the time. I’ve also shown an actual project I did using silver Sculpt Nouveau and a black Briwax fill. This Locomotive is about 13” X 30”.

Sometimes it’s necessary to add detail/texture to areas that would V-carve excessively deep. You can limit the max depth in PartWorks but this isn’t always satisfactory.

Large scale reproductions of ancient block prints always get a lot of attention at shows, but in my experience have not sold well. The locomotive took 6 hours of Bot time alone not to say anything of the design time and has not sold for the $300.00 asking price. However this may be due to the type of buyers that are at the “Art and Craft” shows it has been offered at.

Steve

[myxpykalix]

chuck i sent you a PM.

[Chuck Keysor]

Thanks Steve for showing me that the line drawings I am interested in can be done successfully. If you weren't so far away, I'd want to look at your work to see it up close. A friend with a local gallery/junk store (sells salvaged architectural items, old signs, plaster cast objects of art, etc) He asked me if I could make large format engraved images, like the Rhino image I posted. I told him some day I hope I can make such things, especially if he can sell them.

Jack, saw your email this morning, and will reply to it shortly. I greatly look forward to finding out what you have to say.

Thanks again, Chuck