00:00 I'm Tom Johnson, Thomas Johnson Antique Furniture Restoration in Gorham, Maine.
00:07 These are the tambour doors of a mid-century modern rosewood bar cabinet.
00:12 And you'll see the entire cabinet when I reinstall these in the customer's home.
00:17 I don't know why they're called tambour doors except the word tambour always involves things
00:22 that are round, like think like a tambourine for instance.
00:27 But what's happened here is the material has deteriorated and needs to be replaced.
00:33 The first thing I'm going to do is get a sheet of MDF, that's medium density fiberboard.
00:40 I want to cut a piece to create a flat surface to do this work on.
00:48 I'm going to use a round bit of MDF to cut a piece to length.
01:18 I'm going to cover this with wax paper to keep glue off of it.
01:44 I've got to get this handle off.
02:12 I've got to pry this board off.
02:16 And actually before I pry this board off, I'm going to mill up the boards to hold this
02:21 into place.
02:23 And I'll rab it out for those boards to accommodate the tongues on the door.
02:45 Okay, I'm going to screw these down but I've got to get this end board off first.
03:12 I'm going to hammer this in.
03:38 Yeah, this keeper was glued down.
04:04 That's unusual in my experience.
04:33 I'm going to hammer this in.
05:01 Okay.
05:06 I'm going to hammer this in.
05:36 There we go.
05:57 So I was getting a little tired of scraping it.
06:21 I tried a little heat with the heat gun but that really didn't seem to do too much.
06:26 So what I've done here is I've laid a wet towel on the fabric just for five minutes.
06:33 Yeah, the water didn't really seem to penetrate this much but as you can see, some of it's
06:41 ripping up anyway.
06:42 I'm not sure, I don't think the water had anything to do with that.
06:46 I don't want to soak it down because it would just make a big mess and the other side of
06:50 these is finished and water would creep down.
07:09 So, I'm going to do that.
07:37 Okay.
07:45 This is a heavy linen fabric we call mattress ticking.
08:14 (shuffling)
08:17 (footsteps)
08:19 (footsteps)
08:21 (footsteps)
08:24 (footsteps)
08:26 (sighs)
08:28 (footsteps)
08:30 (footsteps)
08:33 (footsteps)
08:35 (clanking)
08:39 (footsteps)
08:42 (clanking)
08:53 (footsteps)
09:00 (footsteps)
09:02 - I had also cut a second piece of MDF
09:19 covered with wax paper that would fit in here
09:22 on top of the fabric.
09:24 I just want to, it's not absolutely necessary to do this,
09:27 but I want to ensure that this is flat.
09:30 You can use any type of water-soluble glue.
09:37 (scraping)
09:45 (scrubbing)
09:53 (scraping)
09:56 (scraping)
10:12 (scraping)
10:14 (footsteps)
10:33 (clanking)
10:39 (footsteps)
10:41 (clanking)
10:57 (footsteps)
11:00 Okay, I'll let that dry overnight.
11:12 Well, okay, let's see what we got.
11:26 (footsteps)
11:28 All right, this went down nice and flat.
11:37 (drilling)
11:40 (drilling)
11:45 (drilling)
11:52 (clanking)
11:55 Just a quick note about the gloves I've been wearing.
12:12 I anticipate I'd get comments on that,
12:14 just like people used to comment all the time
12:17 on the bandages I had on my fingers.
12:19 You know, there's a high of 22 degrees today.
12:23 For my metric fans, that's minus five.
12:27 Humidity's 25, 30%.
12:29 And the cold shop, the cold tools,
12:32 was just killing the skin on my hands.
12:36 So I, as much as I can, I'm keeping these gloves on,
12:41 moisturize my hands.
12:42 I'll show you.
12:49 Just trying to keep 'em that way.
12:50 (clanking)
12:56 (clanking)
13:04 (clanking)
13:09 (clanking)
13:13 (clanking)
13:15 (drilling)
13:39 (drilling)
13:41 (drilling)
13:52 (clanking)
13:56 (scraping)
14:00 (scraping)
14:03 (scraping)
14:23 (scraping)
14:26 (scrubbing)
14:33 (scraping)
14:35 (scraping)
14:37 (scraping)
14:40 (scraping)
14:42 (scraping)
14:44 (scraping)
14:46 (scraping)
14:49 (clanking)
15:16 (clanking)
15:19 Okay, I let this dry overnight.
15:26 On the second door, I was, I actually did a much better job
15:33 of cutting the fabric and fitting it here.
15:36 This is a little bit off,
15:37 so I'm gonna trim up these edges a bit.
15:45 (scraping)
15:47 (clanking)
16:07 All right, these are the boards
16:10 that go on the inside of the doors,
16:13 you know, to which the, right on the inside center edge.
16:17 I've gotta clean them down and reattach 'em.
16:19 Boy, this glue just does not wanna scrape off.
16:27 I tried the heat, really seemed to have no effect,
16:31 which was my experience on the tambours themselves,
16:33 which ultimately didn't matter.
16:35 But what I've done here is soaked a little vinegar on it,
16:39 and that seems to be working fine.
16:41 (scraping)
16:43 Okay, let's see what we got.
16:46 Oh yeah, this is great.
17:05 (hissing)
17:10 (clanking)
17:12 Okay, I've gotta reinstall these strips
17:25 on the inside of the doors.
17:27 They were originally glued and nailed,
17:29 but I'm going to screw them down.
17:31 (hissing)
17:35 (hissing)
17:38 (hissing)
17:40 (scraping)
17:42 (scraping)
17:44 (scraping)
17:46 (scraping)
17:49 (scraping)
17:51 (scraping)
17:53 (scraping)
17:55 (scraping)
17:58 (scraping)
18:00 (scraping)
18:28 (hissing)
18:31 (scraping)
18:33 (scraping)
18:35 (hissing)
18:37 (scraping)
19:05 Okay, now I will get my kit
19:08 and go to the customer's house to install these.
19:11 Okay, here I am in the customer's home.
19:16 Got a well-stocked cabinet here.
19:18 We took the doors out from the front,
19:21 but they were in pieces.
19:23 I'm not sure if they're gonna go back in or not.
19:25 We're gonna find out.
19:26 The first thing I'm gonna do is vacuum these tracks
19:31 just to get any dust or anything out of there.
19:35 (vacuuming)
19:37 And now I'll wax these tracks as best I can.
19:43 I really can't get to in the back or anything.
19:46 And I'll also wax the doors,
19:56 you know, the, these tongues, if you will,
20:00 that are, that go in the slot.
20:03 (thudding)
20:05 So this opening of the cabinet is not a perfect square.
20:15 The top and bottom are curved.
20:19 So there's a much larger dimension here
20:20 in the center than there.
20:22 We were able to pull them out through the center,
20:26 but they were in pieces.
20:27 So let's see if it'll go back now that it's all together.
20:30 (vacuuming)
20:32 (scraping)
20:35 (scraping)
20:37 (scraping)
20:39 This is great.
21:07 (thudding)
21:08 One down.
21:09 Now I gotta do the other one the same way,
21:10 but I don't have this space available to me.
21:15 I'm not sure how this is gonna work.
21:18 Oh, I just realized this was kind of stuck there.
21:21 Something was holding it up,
21:23 but obviously it opens all the way.
21:27 And so now I have the room to do this.
21:29 (thudding)
21:34 (scraping)
21:36 (thudding)
21:38 (scraping)
21:40 (thudding)
21:43 (scraping)
21:45 (thudding)
22:14 All right, now I'm gonna go over the cabinet
22:17 with my orange oil beeswax polish.
22:20 (thudding)
22:31 (scraping)
22:38 (scraping)
22:41 So there you have it.
22:52 This is a really nice mid-century modern
22:55 rosewood bar cabinet made in the 1960s by Mobler.
23:00 And it was fine, except the fabric had deteriorated
23:04 on the back of these tambours.
23:06 (thudding)
23:08 And now it's fine.
23:13 I spent about eight hours on this job
23:15 that includes pickup and delivery.
23:18 And these are the tools I used.
23:20 I think it looks pretty good.
23:27 (scraping)
23:29 (thudding)
23:32 (thudding)
23:34 (wind blowing)
23:47 (wind blowing)
23:50 (wind blowing)
23:52 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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