Project Information
A couple of months ago, I was reading Sheila Landry's blog entries (as I do most every day) and became very interested in a box she antiqued using paint and some really wonderful stenciling techniques.
It got me thinking. What would it take to create an item that would look perfectly at home on a shelf in an antique store and fool it's owner into thinking it was at least a hundred years old?
Here's what two month's of mulling this over and a couple of day's worth of work in the shop resulted in - a box that would (hopefully) fool most of the people most of the time.
Here's a few items I've noted when trying to turn an item old:
1) Study similar items that are actually old! You get a lot of subtle clues from this - in this case, the staining in and in front of the finger hole. I wouldn't have thought to do this. Also the wear marks at either end.
2) Less is more. Don't overdo it. I scrapped the first label I made for this because it looked too old - and fake.
3) Say NO to perfection. The folks making these boxes in the 1890's didn't care about perfection, neither should you.
The box itself was a section of dimensional poplar last week. I used the table saw to re-saw it into two pieces and a very simple box-joint jig for the joints.
I used a slew of things to make it appear aged, but the number one item in my arsenal this time was powdered graphite - it instantly made the box look stained and old.
After that I used water-based varnish and put it on pretty thick as I wanted it bit of a blush to develop.
Dimensions of the box are around 10×3x3 "ish".
My wife quickly claimed this one claiming she needed a box for her cosmetics - how appropriate!
Oh yeah! I am seriously looking for some comments on this project - please let me know what gives this away as new, what I over-did or under-did, etc…....
Thanks!
-bob
It got me thinking. What would it take to create an item that would look perfectly at home on a shelf in an antique store and fool it's owner into thinking it was at least a hundred years old?
Here's what two month's of mulling this over and a couple of day's worth of work in the shop resulted in - a box that would (hopefully) fool most of the people most of the time.
Here's a few items I've noted when trying to turn an item old:
1) Study similar items that are actually old! You get a lot of subtle clues from this - in this case, the staining in and in front of the finger hole. I wouldn't have thought to do this. Also the wear marks at either end.
2) Less is more. Don't overdo it. I scrapped the first label I made for this because it looked too old - and fake.
3) Say NO to perfection. The folks making these boxes in the 1890's didn't care about perfection, neither should you.
The box itself was a section of dimensional poplar last week. I used the table saw to re-saw it into two pieces and a very simple box-joint jig for the joints.
I used a slew of things to make it appear aged, but the number one item in my arsenal this time was powdered graphite - it instantly made the box look stained and old.
After that I used water-based varnish and put it on pretty thick as I wanted it bit of a blush to develop.
Dimensions of the box are around 10×3x3 "ish".
My wife quickly claimed this one claiming she needed a box for her cosmetics - how appropriate!
Oh yeah! I am seriously looking for some comments on this project - please let me know what gives this away as new, what I over-did or under-did, etc…....
Thanks!
-bob
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