Unlucky Alf
Established Member
Hello everyone, having lurked for a couple of weeks I've finally decided to dip my toe in the water and appeal for a little advice.
We bought a property in France some time back and one of the many items we inherited form the previous owner was an enormous Frigidaire refrigerator, which I would guess dates from the fifties. The property used to be run as a Gite d’etape, sort of a hostel mainly for walkers and horse riders, and part of the barn was converted into a café, this café will, eventually, become my woodshop complete with kitchen, stores, washroom and lavatory . At the moment this Frigidaire is taking up valuable machine space so it needs to be sold or relocated to one of the new gites we are building.
One of the doors on the Frigidaire was badly marked, I think someone may have leant something against it with a strong solvent on it at some time in the past, an upside down floor mop perhaps? So I decided to strip the old finish off and start again, I would probably have had to do this anyway as the amount of dirt and grease on it goes way beyond what could reasonably be described as patina. I made a start today with 0000 wire wool and meths just to see what I was dealing with and revealed what I’d been hoping for, beautiful unmarked wood, which to my untrained eye looks like mahogany. It would certainly go some way to explaining the extraordinary weight of this thing.
I have been trying to work out how to replicate the original finish which I guess would have been shellac and wax. My only knowledge of this type of finish comes from watching “Restoration Man” on Discovery Reel-estate Time and as they say a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. I was wondering if anyone could give me some guidance on which shellac I should use, I was thinking of button but I’m not sure if this might be a little dark, I’ve been told that the factory finish had more of a golden hue to it but I don’t know how this would be achieved on mahogany. I know that Frigidaire used to build these appliances in oak as well so I wonder if the person who told me that is basing their statement on having seen those.
Also has anyone got any suggestions on how to speed up the cleaning process, at the moment I plan on using meths and 0000 to get the bulk of the dirt off before switching to something milder like Liberon cleaner to finish but there’s a hell of a lot of wood so any suggestions would be appreciated. The interior is painted white so I think I’ll just be sanding and recoating in a microporous water based paint and then replacing the slatted shelving units, probably with iroko or similar.
If you managed to wade this far through my post I suppose I should show you exactly what I’m talking about.
Anyone want to buy a fridge? Only those with concrete floors and a forklift need apply. :lol:
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Simon
We bought a property in France some time back and one of the many items we inherited form the previous owner was an enormous Frigidaire refrigerator, which I would guess dates from the fifties. The property used to be run as a Gite d’etape, sort of a hostel mainly for walkers and horse riders, and part of the barn was converted into a café, this café will, eventually, become my woodshop complete with kitchen, stores, washroom and lavatory . At the moment this Frigidaire is taking up valuable machine space so it needs to be sold or relocated to one of the new gites we are building.
One of the doors on the Frigidaire was badly marked, I think someone may have leant something against it with a strong solvent on it at some time in the past, an upside down floor mop perhaps? So I decided to strip the old finish off and start again, I would probably have had to do this anyway as the amount of dirt and grease on it goes way beyond what could reasonably be described as patina. I made a start today with 0000 wire wool and meths just to see what I was dealing with and revealed what I’d been hoping for, beautiful unmarked wood, which to my untrained eye looks like mahogany. It would certainly go some way to explaining the extraordinary weight of this thing.
I have been trying to work out how to replicate the original finish which I guess would have been shellac and wax. My only knowledge of this type of finish comes from watching “Restoration Man” on Discovery Reel-estate Time and as they say a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. I was wondering if anyone could give me some guidance on which shellac I should use, I was thinking of button but I’m not sure if this might be a little dark, I’ve been told that the factory finish had more of a golden hue to it but I don’t know how this would be achieved on mahogany. I know that Frigidaire used to build these appliances in oak as well so I wonder if the person who told me that is basing their statement on having seen those.
Also has anyone got any suggestions on how to speed up the cleaning process, at the moment I plan on using meths and 0000 to get the bulk of the dirt off before switching to something milder like Liberon cleaner to finish but there’s a hell of a lot of wood so any suggestions would be appreciated. The interior is painted white so I think I’ll just be sanding and recoating in a microporous water based paint and then replacing the slatted shelving units, probably with iroko or similar.
If you managed to wade this far through my post I suppose I should show you exactly what I’m talking about.
Anyone want to buy a fridge? Only those with concrete floors and a forklift need apply. :lol:
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Simon