Gently refinishing a Century 5x7 -- basic questions

[jil_tardiff]

Hi all,

 

 

I acquired a nice Century 5x7 (still blows my mind to see these old cameras

with light-tight bellows and functioning geared movements).

 

I fully intend on cleaning it up, polishing the brass, will have to replace a

piece of wood on the center track, etc. My main question is regarding the

finish. According to my research, this model has a mahogany body and cherry wood

rails.

 

Would anyone mind weighing in on their favorite approaches to restore or

refinish this camera? I'm actually in the midst of stripping a battleship grey

B&J -- planning on going with Tung oil/shellac, but that is a wholesale "attack"

sort of job, I want to "do no harm" with this lovely oldster.

 

I apologize for the lousy image-- only had a very old digital at-hand, but

figured might be useful for folks to eyeball.

 

Thanks in advance,

 

JT<div></div>

[michaelging]

I use Minwax antique oil, that comes in a red can. It can be made to look glossy or semi-mat and protects from water.Most Tung oil never really dries and this stuff does.One of the best deals I found was a 5x7 box camera that was a total gray from shellac bloom at a antique show. The seller did not know how to open the "Gray" box,which I bought for $20 cash. When I left the show I opened it to see red leather bellows,rosewood and brass. I used alcohol to take off the shellac and finished it off with the Minwax Antique oil, it's beautiful.

[ronald_moravec1]

http://www.drwoodwell.com/

 

Found this with Google- cleaning antique wood furnature

 

Laquer thinner will remove the laquer. Polish with Brasso then relaquer. Air brush is best, internal mix. Laquer in low humidity to keep it from blushing. Prop the parts up on a turntable to get all around it

 

I am using "New Finish" car finish on the brass on my Zone IV. If it protects a car laquer ( when cars were laquer), should be ok for a camera. About 4 years now and still ok. No tarnishing. NF has been around 20+ years.

 

By the liquid New Finish in orange bottle, not the paste.

 

BTW, it`s terrific on cars too. I put down 5 coats of Maguires Yellow Wax and a coat of New F on top the wax to preserve it. NF is a polyomer finish, not wax. Nothing shines like wax, but it has limited life. NF last 6/12 months depending. Heads turn when people see my black car. Looks like black liquid.

[frankz]

Acquiring an old 8x10 to refit and refinish has been a dream I've harbored for years, but it's remained a dream. Haven't found the time nor space to do so.

 

As to finishing the wood - unless you're willing to try and mix your own according to old formulai, similar to what many modern-day luthiers do when constructing a violin (which would be a good finish, BTW), stick with the commercial stuff.

 

My plans were to finish the wood as I would a gunstock - base of sealer, then a tung oil/japan (japan works as an accelerator for the tung oil) mix until the pores are filled and no longer exhibit "holes" when dry. Sand EVERYTHING off between coats. Eventually, you'll not have the little 'holes' in the finish after drying; takes 7-10 coatings and 7-10 days. Use your fingers to spread it, not a rag or brush unless you enjoy the sight of lint and bristles.

 

Sand one more time, VERY LIGHTLY with 600-800 wet/dry paper using a bit of water to keep the paper from plugging up. Add one, final, LIGHT coat of the tung/japan mix using your fingers.

 

Get a box of rottenstone (fine, abrasive powder) and lightly rub the finish to remove and blend any visible variations or visible in the finish.

 

Wipe with a damp cloth, let dry, and wax with some Johnson's, Tree, or similar product.

 

This finish is waterproof where applied. As I said, this is how I finish a gunstock. It produces a satiny finish (not matte, not gloss), very smooth to the touch, and shows off the wood's features.

[john_shriver]

Shellac is very easy to refresh with a new coat, there's no chemical change when it dries, the solvent (methanol) just evaporates.

 

You might have to learn French Polishing if the original finish was a very high gloss shellac. Otherwise polish afterwards with fine steel wool.

 

If it is shellac (which is likely), clean it with mineral spirits first. Don't clean it with methanol unless you want to remove the original finish.

[lauren_macintosh]

If you truly wish to finish it properly, I'd suggest you got to this web site and read up on their products they have for very good wood finish's, I have use their products and love them when I was working with wood:[http://www.garrettwade.com/] good luck and enjoy:

[glenn_thoreson]

My goal with these is to keep it looking old, while making it clean and to cover the bare spots. I don't try to "refinish", per se. I want it to look like a well loved original. I clean the grime off really well. Polish any metal that needs it, or can hold up to it. I then wipe on a thin coat of stain that matches the original as close as I can. I let it sit a few minutes and wipe it off. This blends in any areas of missing finish pretty well. I let the thing dry overnight, then go over the whole thing with Minwax Finishing Wax. One or more coats, to suit. It will still look old and used, but clean and nice. I just recently did an 8X10 Conley and it looks great. And original.

[frank_menesdorfer]

Jil!

 

When I got my Liberty the choices were given as it come with a very bad black paint and some of the wooden parts were lose too. So I gently strip the camera down did some drawings on parts which I decided were difficult to remember how to put it back together again some months lather.

 

I find that under the paint it were a beautiful mahogany so I decided to remove the paint and than nock all the parts gently to see if some other more parts were loose to Than I glued those back again but before you do must scrape all old glue off from the wood as the new one is not going to grip on the old one.

 

This is a nice and time-consuming work but it's worth it. Save all the old screws and write up what comes from where. I had to change some because of the rust but than I decided that change all of it to stainless as brass wasn't available in all sizes and it wouldn't be nice to have brass here and there.

I had to re-chrome all the parts as they was made that way so I just didnt wanted to change it. Brass is easier you can polish but they intend to be ugly by time again so some kind of surface finishing would be wise able.

 

I never sand anything as the lacquer is sitting harder here and there but used blades and a lots of window glass. I break a 2mm glass and used small parts of it which had some radius to scraping the lacquer off. I sand it in the end with a very fine paper.

 

When everything where ready I used we call it a French polyture, its a kind of harts which we dissolve in alcohol. I had to apply this many times and slip with a very fine paper with water but only in the last two times as I dont wanted to let water go into those small pores between the fibres of the wood. The entire process was a hand made job as French polyture cant be applied any other way. I used a very fine and soft brush.

 

This takes time as things got to dry very well before sanding. What you really do is filling all the pores first and than when the entire surface is a kind of semi matt (no glossy parts) I rub this up with a very hard stopped little cotton ball tinted with alcohol and harts but with a much higher viscosity. I had to make those in some different sizes. Use a well washed old sheet from your bed in that way you dont risk that the sheet lives any fibre in the polyture. As the final I used two layer of very high quality lacquer which were half glossy.

 

Now, it's important to mention that you must have some thin wood and got to fill some of the holes after the screws as some of those were not going to work again. You will se when dismounting the camera.

 

And here is the result. Good luck to you.

[john_wire]

Beautiful Liberty!!!

[frank_menesdorfer]

Thaks John!

 

It took some days to get her back to work again. :-)

[jil_tardiff]

Boy, what great input --- I *really* wanted to try to get the Century as close to it's original

state as possible, **exactly** as Frank did with that beautiful Liberty (I can't believe

someone painted it black!) It seems that both Frank M and Frank S. are describing very

similar processes-- similar to the French polishing John mentioned. This sounds like the

way to go-- looks like I have a nice project for awhile.

 

Thanks for the heads-up on the "New Finish" for the brass, Ron. Maguires makes great

stuff--my husband uses all of their products on his beloved vehicles.

 

Time to peruse some web sites (garretwade has tons of interesting stuff).

 

Can't wait to get started-- first a through cleaning. I think a few photos of the camera

with appended notes will help me keep track of where everything goes as I start to

disassemble it.

 

Thanks a million to all,

 

JT

[ted_stoddard]

I have a Kodak 2D 5X7 I'm in the process of cleaning all brass and repolishing it... Then I'm going to work on the wood a complete strip down... to bare wood but going to refinish with the same color or lighter to show wood details... I need advice on brass polish and wood stripper... What should I use on as the clear coat for protection and for water proof? Minwax?

[gary_meader]

I refinished an oldish B&J 8X10 a few years back. I used the orange gel to strip the old multi-

layered paint. It doesn't smell up the house and works very well. But wear gloves anyway.

Tung oil is what I use on the finishing end and it looks great. Look up in the archives an

article by Kevin Bourke on refinishing. It's very helpful and is what made me take the plunge

to refinish my own. Good luck with it.

[jim_galli4]

Hi Jil. For the record, the Liberty was a rebranded Seneca. Seneca's turned black at the factory just about the time Model T Fords did also. So the black paint on Frankie's camera was the original finish but I can attest to the outstanding job he did as I sold the camera to him and when it left the United States, it was rubbish.