One hundred Years of Dust: Restoration of an Antique Mahogany Bed

This was my grandmother's bed, it's over 100 years old. It's made from mahogany, and mahogany veneer, with brass decorations and bed knobs. I took on this project and restoration to keep a piece of history alive.

First I cleaned the bed headboard and footboard and sides. There was a lot of dust and debris from being stored in a shed for years.

Remove the brass. This was actually quite difficult, the screws were quite small and worn or stuck. I used WD-40 to help loosen the screws to make it easier to remove the brass.

With many Mahogany pieces red stain is usually added to the piece to bring out the red in the wood. However, I think red stain takes away from the wood itself, so I like to strip it off, and just use an oil or wax and let the wood speak for itself. I stripped the bed with paint/stain stripper twice. Using a plastic scraper to remove the residue, and then cleaning the pieces again until all the residue is removed.

I used two methods to cleaning the brass. I used brasso and the second method I used baking soda and lemon juice. For the baking soda I made a paste with the lemon juice and then I put it on the brass, scrubbed it into the brass with a brush, and then left the paste on the brass for an hour and then rinsed it off. They came up beautifully

The main task is sanding and oiling. I sanded everything by hand so to not damage the veneer. I also didn't want to take out all of the dents or marks as they are a part of the pieces history. I started with an 80 grit, to 120.
I also filled in any holes using, wood filler, and for smaller cracks I used coloured wax. I color matched some of the filer with furniture markers.
I used wood hardener on the 2 side pieces on either end where they will connect to the head and foot board. It was in good condition but I wanted to make sure it will last a long time.
The feet had wheels on them, I cut these off so they would be flat and not move and I put furniture pads on the feet.
I was constantly cleaning and dusting as I went. I replaced a piece of the decorative rail on the headboard as it was missing. It was pine so I had to paint and colour match it and then glue it on to the head piece. I have to repair a cracked board on the foot board, it was the left flat board under the decorative brass bed knob/piece. I removed it, and took out the old nails, glued and clamped it together and glued it back on to the bed.
Some of the veneer was bubbling, or missing. I removed any flaking pieces of veneer and replaced it with veneer, sanded and oiled to match. The bubbling pieces were much more difficult, I didn't want to replace it all because it would be very difficult to match the pattern and it's very difficult to get veneer at the moment. So I injected glue under the pieces that were bubbling and steams it and flattened it.
After all this, I could start oiling, I used danish oil and it brought out the pattern and color beautifully. I did 3 coats, sanding with 400, to 600 grit in between coats. I polished with one final layer of beeswax.

Some of the brass had turned copper, and I decided I preferred it if it was a little brighter. So I used gold leaf, I used the glue for, let it dry for 15 minutes and then at the gold leaf. I used imitation gold leaf. It was too gold so I used watered down paint to age the pieces so they would fit in better with the brass.

I was missing three brass pieces/flowers from the foot board and I decided I would make them from resin.
I made moulds from silicone. I had a bowel of washing up liquid and water. I used all purpose silicone, I squeezed it in to the water and with wet hands rolled the squiggly lines into a ball in the water. I the took out the ball and put it into a plastic bowel, I then pressed the brass flower into it and let it dry for an hour. After it's dry I took out the brass piece and was left with a perfect mould. I did this a few times to make sure I had a good enough mould. I then got resin and mixed it according to the instructions and left it to dry for 24 hours. They looked great, I used a Dremel to smooth some of the edges and drilled a small hole in the middle for the screw. I then gilding and aged them as above. You'd never notice the difference. They turned out great.