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Thread: "New Gear" and restoration

  1. #11

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    Re: "New Gear" and restoration

    Quote Originally Posted by Drew Bedo View Post
    What is good for a leather covered wood body . . .like a Graphic
    For leather I use products made for car leather upholstery or the old standards, saddle soap (to clean) and neet's foot oil (to condition). I have an old leather camera bag that my baby Speed Graphic came in. Over the years it had become very stiff. I treated it for a week or so with several generous applications of neet's foot oil-- it's very nice and supple now. Not bad after 77 years.

  2. #12

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    Re: "New Gear" and restoration

    Quote Originally Posted by Jac@stafford.net View Post
    Michael, I would like to clean up my Century 1 8x10 to sell it, but I cannot tell if it has been treated with Bad Stuff, and will not proceed if I cannot be sure. Is there a way to tell?

    I once got an old wood lensboard that had a dime-sized white spot in the finish, almost as if it were embedded. Mild soap and water did nothing for it. I threw it in the fireplace. Suppose it was Pledge or some other housewife's nightmare product?
    There's really no way to tell until you try to refinish something. What silicone does in finishing is cause what's called fisheyes. These are spots where the silicone completely repels the new coating--the new varnish will draw away from any spot with silicone, and the fisheye is actually a dry spot in the middle of a new varnish coat--usually a whole bunch of dry spots that make the new job look like the surface of the moon. Weirdly, the way to avoid fisheye is if you know there's a problem you add silicone to the varnish you are painting on. That creates some sort of affinity, replacing the rejection. Guitar places like the aforementioned Stew-Mac sell fisheye eliminator for this purpose. This may not be a problem with oiled finishes--I've never tried.

    White spots are often caused by moisture--like the white rings glasses leave on furniture. That's moisture that's gone into the finish and clouded it. They can often be removed by careful treatment with the finish's solvent--alcohol, for instance, but it's touchy work, since you are dissolving the old finish, too. Sometimes you can just spray on a heavy coat of solvent, but not enough to run, and walk away for a couple of hours and the problem fixes itself. . . . or you get a mess. With something like a lens board I'd put it in a tupperware container with a little cup of solvent (try alcohol first) and let it stew for a couple of hours, then if that works, take off the lid, don't touch anything, and let it harden back up.

    The Stew-Mac Preservation polish is pretty good. We use it on our rentals. It does contain an oil that evaporates, so a couple of days later, when the oil is gone, things don't look as nice as you thought they did. But it is a good cleaner and it doesn't hurt anything.
    Thanks, but I'd rather just watch:
    Large format: http://flickr.com/michaeldarnton
    Mostly 35mm: http://flickr.com/mdarnton
    You want digital, color, etc?: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stradofear

  3. #13

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    Re: "New Gear" and restoration

    Quote Originally Posted by brucetaylor View Post
    For leather I use products made for car leather upholstery or the old standards, saddle soap (to clean) and neet's foot oil (to condition). I have an old leather camera bag that my baby Speed Graphic came in. Over the years it had become very stiff. I treated it for a week or so with several generous applications of neet's foot oil-- it's very nice and supple now. Not bad after 77 years.
    I'd rceommnd pure neatsfoot oil, not the cheaper compounds that rot stitching.
    "I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority"---EB White

  4. #14

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    Re: "New Gear" and restoration

    Quote Originally Posted by dsphotog View Post
    I use Lemon Pledge, and Q-tips for detailing the hard to reach spots.
    +1

  5. #15

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    Re: "New Gear" and restoration

    Quote Originally Posted by mdarnton View Post
    I'm going to do a little rank pulling exercise here, speaking as someone who restores and repairs multi-million dollar musical instruments: you do NOT want to put any commercial furniture polishes anywhere near anything you value. As Jac mentions, silicone is death in so many ways. In particular, once it's in the wood, if anything breaks or comes unglued, you can forget about gluing it--forever. It does cause refinishing problems, too, but those can be gotten around if you know there's silicone present, but the glue joint problem is there, always. I cringe every time someones recommends Pledge on bellows, it is so much the wrong product to use for that, even if some ignorant bellows guy recommended it at some point.

    Waxes are pretty much fine, but if you want to do the museum-appropriate thing, Renaissance Wax is the product that museums and instrument restorers use, and it's great stuff.
    That sounds great! Thanks for this. Will be looking to get some. Just to be sure, is it "micro crystalline wax polish"? That's what seems to turn up on most of my searches.

  6. #16

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    Re: "New Gear" and restoration

    Renaissance wax is the way to go. I haven't looked a my can of it lately but "micro-crystalline" seems right. A little goes a long way.

  7. #17

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    Re: "New Gear" and restoration

    Well, I've just ordered a small can of "renaissance wax", will try it on an old cabinet I have standing around in the garage, but I'm quite eager to get it on the camera. The thing just disserves a second lease on life and I really want to get out and play with the 5x7 format. Seems about ideal for portability whilst still being large enough for contact prints. Thank you all for the suggestions!

  8. #18

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    Re: "New Gear" and restoration

    Quote Originally Posted by mdarnton View Post
    I'm going to do a little rank pulling exercise here, speaking as someone who restores and repairs multi-million dollar musical instruments: you do NOT want to put any commercial furniture polishes anywhere near anything you value. As Jac mentions, silicone is death in so many ways. In particular, once it's in the wood, if anything breaks or comes unglued, you can forget about gluing it--forever. It does cause refinishing problems, too, but those can be gotten around if you know there's silicone present, but the glue joint problem is there, always. I cringe every time someones recommends Pledge on bellows, it is so much the wrong product to use for that, even if some ignorant bellows guy recommended it at some point.

    Waxes are pretty much fine, but if you want to do the museum-appropriate thing, Renaissance Wax is the product that museums and instrument restorers use, and it's great stuff.
    Sounds like great advice! Thank goodness that I saw this post before polishing my wood camera.

    Old wood cameras consist of combinations of finished wood, metal, and leather. I would be very careful about a polish or enhancer intended for any one of these surfaces reaching either of the other two.
    Last edited by neil poulsen; 5-Apr-2015 at 09:33.

  9. #19

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    Re: "New Gear" and restoration

    Quote Originally Posted by kleinbatavia View Post
    Thanks for the replies so far! I've heard of carnauba wax, seems to be used widely for carpentry. Not so sure about pledge, would that not have some funky additives? Any indication on how resistant the various options are?
    What's Carnauba? It's a tree, found at the northeast of Brazil

    Nome científico: Copernicia prunifera (Miller) H.E. Moore
    Família: Palmae (Arecaceae)
    Sinonímia: Copernicia cerifera Mart.

    The wax is extracted from the leaves, the process is a mix of dry-wet sequences, and - after more then 30 years woodworking for hobby and as furniture maker that's the more environment friendly and high quality product I had used.

    Cheers,

    Renato

  10. #20

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    Re: "New Gear" and restoration

    Quote Originally Posted by Jac@stafford.net View Post
    Pledge might not damage an existing finish, but its oil, silicone can penetrate and cause refinishes to fail.
    Wow, glad I never put that on my camera! Just ordered a small tin of renaissance, let's see how that turns out. Thanks for the warning on pledge though!

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