This is quite a unique little trunk. Smaller than your average steamer trunk, I can imagine it would fit men's clothes,
much better than the volumeous women's clothing worn generations ago. This trunk has the look of aged painted leather, and our task was to clean it then restore it. Unfortunately, right away when we began cleaning it, we discovered that it was not covered in leather after all, but Paper!
We stopped cleaning immediately and asked the customer to come in
and look at the trunk to decide what course of action to take next. The customer does have several options at this point. The top will need a coat of laquer to keep the paper from deteriorating further. They could choose to laquer the entire trunk, and leave it's appearance as is, or they could choose to paint it which would give a huge range of possibilities
for the trunk's appearance. They could go with a simple, all one color paint, or it could be distressed to mimic age. Or the Leather look that is currently on the trunk could be re created. I am looking forward to finding out what they choose. And I will be sure to let you know.
By the way, that black metal on the last picture is from an application of 'stoprust'. The metal can be left this way, or cleaned and re-coated in a 'metal color'.
ReplyDelete