Official Luthiers Forum!

I have a 75-100 yr. old gate leg table that belonged to my Grandmother. I do not wish to re-finish the table.
I wish to know how to and what to use to clean dirt, oils, etc. (non-finish) and apply bee's-wax or something similar.

Howard's



http://www.howardproducts.com/feednwax.htm

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The trick used by a lot of New England antique dealers is to clean first with one of the gel hand cleaners that does not require water and has lanolin in it.   Depending on the finish, you can do that with 0000 steel wool or old T-shirts.   Then use the Howard's product which is also great for fingerboards. I did a bunch of antiques for my mother years ago, and the results were amazing.

We have quite a bit of very old furniture in our house. The house itself is 500+ years old based round an earlier mediaeval Hall House and the oldest piece of furniture we have is an oak coffer that is Elizabethan, plus a lot of Tudor panelling. The advice we have been given over the years is not to try and clean it, patina can be detroyed that will take another hundred years to build up, but just to dust with a cloth, and once a year polish with pure beeswax.

Colin

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