This old trunk came to us partially dis-assembled by it's good intentioned owner. They had wanted to fix it up themselves, but realized it was way to big of a project for them. It still had a little bit of the green painted canvas and a few strips of metal left on the box, but other then that, it was in pieces. They had been able to salvage almost all of the original hardware. The tin strips were rusted so they would need some work, but the cast brass edge and corner pieces were still looking gorgeous. We treated all the tin sheeting that went on the trunk with a rust arrestor. This would keep any rust damage from spreading. All the tin was then painted a shiny black. All of the wooden slats that decorate the trunk had been marked for us so that we would know where they went once the trunk was re-assembled. This was a big help, and saved us from needing to solve many puzzles. We re-glued any cracks and breaks. Then the slats were stripped, sanded and given a beautiful new water based finish.
We also applied a new canvas cover over the box and painted it a green, very similar to the original green color. We then put the shiny black tin strips on, and all the renewed wooden slats. The brass hardware looks amazing now on this trunk. We don't often get to restore a trunk from it's base, we usually try and make it look as good as possible, without taking the entire thing apart. We are so please with how this trunk turned out though, that hopefully we will get to do more trunks in such a thorough way!
No comments:
Post a Comment