Is this banister mahogany and how to restore it?

[Lithgae]

Hi,
The banister in the pics is from the curved stone stair in my house, believed to have been built around 1820 or earlier, but substantially changed (victorianised) in around 1880ish.

I am not very good at identifying different woods, but from what I can gather from the internet, it seems that mahogany is likely - can anyone confirm from the picture.

When I moved in at first, in autopilot, I sprayed some furniture polish on it, but it seemed to go sticky rather than polish so I stopped. Can anyone advise on what the right thing to use on this is?

Thanks

 

[Matt Green]

A picture of the end grain would help- maybe the newel post end?

 

[Cubist]

In my opinion frankly, while the species of the wood is of interest it is not the important factor here. Rather, it is the nature of the finish that was applied to the timber and how best to clean, and if necessary, to treat it. In all such cases it is wise to use the least dangerous approach at first before progressing toward more aggressive materials or tools. In you position I would start with a soft damp cloth, before moving on to the same cloth dampened in soapy water. If neither of these successfully removes the grime and sticky patches, you can progress toward methods using spirit based solutions such as white or methylated spirit again on a soft cloth or, in the worst case, using a fine wire-wool pad.

I would also be checking the contents list of the spray polish you used. This may have used some kind of spirit in which the polish was held in suspense and this spirit may have, in effect, melted the original finish.

 

[RBailey]

I had good results with restore-a-finish on our handrail.

 

[Stevers]

Certainly looks to be one of the woods in the monogamy family.

If a spray polish containing silicons has been used at any point then that may have contaminated the old finish and any re-finishing can result in 'fish-eyeing'. 'Tom Johnson - Antique Furniture Restorer' on Youtube has to deal with this problem quite often when re-finishing furniture. Silicon - another modern curse!

 

[LadyArowana]

This thread is about a mahogany bannister refurb https://www.periodproperty.co.uk/forum/threads/restoring-mahogany-banister.17605/#post-236556

 

[Toby Newell]

Certainly looks to be one of the woods in the monogamy family.

If a spray polish containing silicons has been used at any point then that may have contaminated the old finish and any re-finishing can result in 'fish-eyeing'. 'Tom Johnson - Antique Furniture Restorer' on Youtube has to deal with this problem quite often when re-finishing furniture. Silicon - another modern curse!

Tom Johnson - Antique Furniture Restorer

lol ^^^ he is an amateur bless him, he has not the first clue (I sent him full instructions on how to refinish a table in 3 days he took several months to ruin but he did not reply bless, I did explain about silicone so maybe he got that from me but was too embarassed to reply)

It's possibly mahogany, might be sapele, hard to tell as low quality photos and rail covered in heavily pigmented varnish.

I would strip and replolish, should look like photos below.

Basically dichloromethane stripper + no 5 wire wool, wash, light sand, light water stain for contrast, then coats of shellac and wax or whatever you like. Hopefully you have a nice Honduras mahogany with some chatoyancy and maybe a flame or two.

Full details here.

www.newellwoodworks.co.uk

 

[Lithgae]

Hi all,
First up I want to say thank you, and apologise to those who responded to my original post more than 6 months ago. I had thought no one had replied as I didn't receive any email notifications and having been absorbed in other work on the house it was only when I came back to this job today that I noticed the responses.

Coming back to this now its actually in a worse state than it was 6 months ago, because when it got a few specs of paint on it when decorating, without my knowledge my wife went at it with sandpaper further damaging the finish

Whatever the wood is the top side seems to be quite thin laminated strips in sections rather than one solid piece of wood (you can see the join line in my 2nd photo). I know they are thin because its lifting a little at one of the joins.

Before coming back on to this thread I had been looking at Howards restore-a-finish and I notice RBailey mentions this above too. Not sure that I have the time with everything else going on to completely strip back and start again, and I would be a bit worried about attempting this if the strips are very thin and liable to lifting, so maybe the restore-a-finish might be worth a try in this case.

 

[Toby Newell]

1. ok, so your pictures are crap, just copies of bad pictures.

2. I am not saying you bannister ISN'T veneered, just that I have never seen one, ever, in several hundred banister rails and so you might be mistaken, what you assume to be 'lifting' might just be height difference where the joint has moved.

3. I hope I am wrong ( for me XD,) please send photos, because that would be really interesting.

4. Howards-Utter-Bullshit-Snake oil? Yeah, all us apprentice trained, City and Guilds use that magic stuff, no idea why we bothered to study for several years. Lmao.

It's a mixed solvent reviver with a nitrostain dye mixed in, when I revived Paul Reichmanns 4 Chippendale chairs, I gave it a swerve, used my own home made reviver and Gedges beeswax and canauba.

Might work on some stuff, might damage others as the solvent is too strong. Utter rubbish, deceptive idiotic marketing.

Cost them pennies per timto make, the promotion of the bullshit is the most expensive ingredient.

Just choose a Coloron dye if they still do them, practically same stuff.

You can make your own, get 5 litres of nitrostain from Morrells for £30 quid.

 

[LadyArowana]

Our banister is exactly like that, sections, but not veneer. Somewhere on the forum I posted pix of gettng it sorted from its filthy condition. I’ll try and find those.

This is the thread Here scroll down for pictures. It doesn’t show well, but they are sections, I worked section by section to keep track, not that it was difficult to know what was done or not. Pretty sure ours is original from circa 1767

 

[Lithgae]

1. ok, so your pictures are crap, just copies of bad pictures.

Not sure what the problem with my pics is? Let me know what you want to see and I will try to get some different angles.

2. I am not saying you bannister ISN'T veneered, just that I have never seen one, ever, in several hundred banister rails and so you might be mistaken, what you assume to be 'lifting' might just be height difference where the joint has moved.

I am fairly (although not 100%) sure that it is laminated at the top. When I say laminated, I mean a thin strip of real wood bonded to a base. It seems like the sides and top are separate.

3. I hope I am wrong ( for me XD,) please send photos, because that would be really interesting.

Photos below

4. Howards-Utter-Bullshit-Snake oil? Yeah, all us apprentice trained, City and Guilds use that magic stuff, no idea why we bothered to study for several years. Lmao.

I think these things are horses for courses. I think there is a difference between using something like this on a valuable antique, versus a DIY job where you are trying to just refresh something. My banister doesn't seem to be of the same quality as the ones that you have posted. Others do appear to have had some success wit this, but I am wary and if I used it I would be testing it out on a less conspicous area first.


Below is close up of where it is lifting. I can press on this part and it moves up and down



Pic of underside



This shows the small sections on the curve

 

[Lithgae]

Our banister is exactly like that, sections, but not veneer. Somewhere on the forum I posted pix of gettng it sorted from its filthy condition. I’ll try and find those.

This is the thread Here scroll down for pictures. It doesn’t show well, but they are sections, I worked section by section to keep track, not that it was difficult to know what was done or not. Pretty sure ours is original from circa 1767

Mine is sections too, but it does seem like they are no solid, one piece sections.

I think this house dates to about 1820, but it had a bit of a Victorian upgrade around 1880ish, when the bay section was added and I think the front of the house was lowered, so it could date from then or later.

 

[Toby Newell]

Mine is sections too, but it does seem like they are no solid, one piece sections.

I think this house dates to about 1820, but it had a bit of a Victorian upgrade around 1880ish, when the bay section was added and I think the front of the house was lowered, so it could date from then or later.

View attachment 11692

Thank you for not taking offence. No the photos were not particularly elucidating and of the same spot!

The one of the lifting part, the new photo doesn't really help!

Try stripping a section. It has a horrible almost paint like pigment on it.

From the feint shape of the growth rings and lack of grain it looks like pine to me.

Why one would veneer a pine hand rail is beyond my ken. I still highly suspect it's solid, if not its very intriguing!

And no. That stuff is a lie and 100% snake oil and does absolutely nothing whatsoever.

It's simply a nahptha (white sprit based) nitro stain (traditionally and confusing called an oil stain, this was before Osmo introduced their pigmented tall oil varnishes and misrepresented them as 'oil stains' and here we are...)

You can buy it in 5 litres from Morrells for like £30 or something.

When we deem it possible, we clean the surface very carefully then go over with a nitrostain, the white spirits help remove any grease and dirt, the dye colours any white scratches thst are through to the wood (although they go a little dark but still preferable to white) then we buff off and go over with a new layer of shellac, or wax.

I am not saying it doesn't work or it's not valid, I have done it hundreds of times.

What I am saying is that it's not a restore-o-matic magic liquid with added bullshit, it's simply a QVC style overhyped highly inflated traditional oil (nitro) stain and the technique is called 'overstaining'.

If you want a more powerful version Morrells do a variant called Classique, this has a stronger solvent but has a stronger dye and a slight build, so imparts more of overal colour cast over transparent finishes.

The bullshit-o-matic could be this second variant. It's not a 'restorer' its simply a stain. And just one of the dozens of tools we use to do our job. The most important one being between our ears.

 

[Lithgae]

It will be difficult for me to get a photo that represents what I can see and feel, but I am nearly certain that the top of the banister is made up of very thin sections that are presumably glued on. One of the reasons that I am certain that the sections are not solid, is that the joint lines on the top don't correspond with the joint lines on the side and bottom. You can see this in the side view pic below, where the joint line in the top section doesn't continue down the side. In the second pic below, taken from underneath the post at the bottom of the stairs you can see bare wood, and it seems like the underside and sides of the rail comprise solid sections of wood, while the top is a combination of shorter stuck down sections.

With respect to the Howards, I was never under any illusion that it was much more than just a stain. I wasn't expecting it to rebuild the banister anew, just to give an evenness of colour. It is only about £20 and other people do seem to have had success using it. I am aware that it will have limitations, like any such product. Putting that aside, I am a little nervous doing anything with this until I know what I am dealing with. The construction does seem a bit odd. I am wondering if it is maybe a semi modern replacement banister, rather than an original piece, or if the top sections could have been laminated on to the original to repair it?

 

[Toby Newell]

Very interesting!

Scape more take better pictures!

The newel and fixings on the underside look period, very odd if they added a 'cap'.

OMG you crack me up with the Howards nonsense, a modicum of general knowledge is required.

Overstaining only works on 1. wax, 2. shellac, it has almost zero effect on heavily pigmented varnish, it will do virtually nothing, you need to strip it lol, this is obvious to me, there is a layer of red brown particles obsuring the timber lol, applying a lighted dyed white spirit isnt going to remove the opaque obstruction

The miracle pictures are faked but indicate an exaggerated effect you can get on bloomed wax.

Over waxed items absorb moisture making the wax look pasty, white and semi opaque, applying white spirits dissolves the wax and the dye helps to darken the wax. Ideally, again, best results are got by simply removing the wax with DCM or a hot soda wash and re shellacking / waxing.

I used oil (nitro) stains as a contract polisher, they were popular as they are easy to use and have a very long open time and little bleed back from quirks.

I haven't used them for probably for 18 years or so and very rarely myself for over staining. They are most useful when you have already sealed in 'in the white' (bare) timber and the client now says they want it darker. In that case, instead of stripping you can sand the sealer back very thoroughly, overstain and reseal, this works best with shellac and to a lesser extent with NC precat, doesnt work with oil, water based or PU, even then the darkening is on the order of half a shade, classique can go a little darker, up to a shade, but is harder to use as it can pull and go streaky. It will obviously have negligible effect in your case, apart from possibly softening the finish, ruining it and making it impossible to overcoat.

 

[Lithgae]

Scape more take better pictures!

What does that mean?

OMG you crack me up with the Howards nonsense, a modicum of general knowledge is required.

Overstaining only works on 1. wax, 2. shellac, it has almost zero effect on heavily pigmented varnish, it will do virtually nothing, you need to strip it lol, this is obvious to me, there is a layer of red brown particles obsuring the timber lol, applying a lighted dyed white spirit isnt going to remove the opaque obstruction

The miracle pictures are faked but indicate an exaggerated effect you can get on bloomed wax.

Its a little over the top to suggest that a product like this never works. If it never worked it wouldn't sell, regardless of marketing. I wasn't considering the product on the basis of anything the company said about it, but from reviews from other sources. Someone on this thread has already said that they used it on their banister and I have seen independent reviews where they highlighted its strengths and weaknesses. You might be right that its not appropriate in my case. I am aware that it wouldn't penetrate through varnish, but the banister doesn't seem to me like it is varnished, although if this is your trade and you can tell that from the picture then I take that on board.

 

[Toby Newell]

Yes, after 30,000 hours and 37 years French polishing and restoring wood I can tell that from the picture. Lmao.

Your banister rail has a massively thick pigmented 'shed varnish' which is almost 100% opaque, it's virtually a paint. Lol have you got any other wood in your house which is a flat colour of dark red paint? What did you think is on the wood if it's not varnish?

How you could think rubbing a translucent dyed solvent could magically restore it is beyond me.

You can't see the wood! There is a layer of pigment on it.

The product is a total and utter scam, its a rebranded nitro stain sold at massively inflated prices. They do not make this stuff in America, I'm pretty sure it's rebottled Morrells or Granyte Surface Coatings nitro stain. It doesn't sell, only in America because they have zero clue on wood finishing. QVC is full of fake, joke products that people are duped into buying once. I know Scott Drayton personally as he called me to compliment me on my website (MD of Morrells - UK's largest wood finish manufacturer) am pretty sure he can sell you 25 litres drums of the stuff for £4 to £5 per litre, if you then rebrand and sell it on for £80 a litre, with added woo woo, you don't need to sell much when your mark up is over 2,000%. They also make a very diluted wax with mineral and orange oil, which is a rip off and potentially damaging to antiques, limonene smells heavenly but is an incredibly powerful solvent (absolutely brilliant for removing glue residue) they say to apply it monthly to stop wood drying out keep it 'fed' this is massive donkey bollocks. I use Jenkins (Harrels 92 year old recipe) or Mylands Traditional (Gedges 142 year old recipe) beeswax and carnuba, a correctly finished item might need rewaxing once every year or two years, maybe twice a year if prone to direct sunlight. Wood does not need 'feeding'. I am working on late 1600s elm floor boards and beams today, earlier rhis year I worked on early 1600s oak and pine and before last Christmas I worked on early 1500s oak and pine, all restorable, all did not require 'feeding', in fact, one of the 1500s oak floors I left bare. I don't expect it will have evaporated since.

If they added mineral and orange oils to the magic restorer this will also destroy any finish over time, make some go sticky and make refinishing difficult. These type of bullshit wonder products are ok to zhuzh up a junk item that has no value if you can't be bothered to investigate how to do the job properly, but a few hours well spent educating yourself and you can do a proper job with less risk of damage using traditional products.

Anyway. It's all incredibly basic common sense. If you want to improve your handrail, simply strip it.

FYI I have a specific article, the size of a small novel, specifically on stripping on my website if you need help. And another on finishing.

If you do please post pictures I would like to see what wood it is and also if they have stuck some weird caps on the top, because that is incredibly odd, and thus interesting. I still think you are mistaken and maybe the wood has split as the sides look mahog too. But, unlike some others I love being wrong, because it means I might learn something new.

It is probably mahogany btw, from the grain I can see, the pine like stripes are probably just where a layer of finish has rubbed off.

If it's not a PU varnish it might be an amber or copal shellac varnish or straight doped shellac, although it's very thick.

A common polishers 'tosh' job (ie quick and dirty) is to coat everything in a heavily pigmented shellac, this covers scratches and fading but obscures the grain. If you are unlucky enough to get the same guy back or a sucession of toshers then after two or three coats the effect is almost opaque.

What do I mean by scrape??? Er... scrape! As in purchase a cabinet scraper, tungsten carbide scraper or simply a 10 pack of Stanley 1992 type blades and scrape a section, then I can identify the wood.

 

[Lithgae]

Your banister rail has a massively thick pigmented 'shed varnish' which is almost 100% opaque, it's virtually a paint. Lol have you got any other wood in your house which is a flat colour of dark red paint? What did you think is on the wood if it's not varnish?

Well, that's exactly what was confusing me. I've been working on my own houses for around 30 years, and I haven't seen anything before that looks and feel like this. It doesn't look or feel like varnish to me, it doesn't have any shine, its dull/flat. It doesn't seem like any paint I have seen before but then 'old' paints can very different to the ones I am more used to. You mention Shellac later in your post, and I had read about this being used on banisters and wondered if it was Shellac that I was looking at, but I don't have any experience of this so wouldn't be able to say what Shellac looks or feels like.

If you do please post pictures I would like to see what wood it is and also if they have stuck some weird caps on the top, because that is incredibly odd, and thus interesting. I still think you are mistaken and maybe the wood has split as the sides look mahog too. But, unlike some others I love being wrong, because it means I might learn something new.

Its not just the part that is lifting that makes me think that these are laminated or glued on gaps. Its the fact that the faint, straight lines show that these are separate pieces, and there are no such lines on the side of the rail. I would be close to certain that these caps are in separate sections to the sides.

A common polishers 'tosh' job (ie quick and dirty) is to coat everything in a heavily pigmented shellac, this covers scratches and fading but obscures the grain. If you are unlucky enough to get the same guy back or a sucession of toshers then after two or three coats the effect is almost opaque.

So my question was going to be, why would anyone cover a mahogany banister in paint, or as you suggest here maybe it is shellac. My concern is that this could have been done deliberately in order to cover wood that was beyond repair and if I strip it and find that to be the case, the only thing I could presumably do is cover it back up again with something that is heavily pigmented?

What do I mean by scrape??? Er... scrape! As in purchase a cabinet scraper, tungsten carbide scraper or simply a 10 pack of Stanley 1992 type blades and scrape a section, then I can identify the wood.

So you didn't say scrape, you said "scape", which I can see now was a typo. I'd like to do that, but I am a bit wary because there are no sections that are not easily visible so if I start stripping I will be in for a pound.

 

[Toby Newell]

Well, that's exactly what was confusing me. I've been working on my own houses for around 30 years, and I haven't seen anything before that looks and feel like this. It doesn't look or feel like varnish to me, it doesn't have any shine, its dull/flat. It doesn't seem like any paint I have seen before but then 'old' paints can very different to the ones I am more used to. You mention Shellac later in your post, and I had read about this being used on banisters and wondered if it was Shellac that I was looking at, but I don't have any experience of this so wouldn't be able to say what Shellac looks or feels like.


Its not just the part that is lifting that makes me think that these are laminated or glued on gaps. Its the fact that the faint, straight lines show that these are separate pieces, and there are no such lines on the side of the rail. I would be close to certain that these caps are in separate sections to the sides.


So my question was going to be, why would anyone cover a mahogany banister in paint, or as you suggest here maybe it is shellac. My concern is that this could have been done deliberately in order to cover wood that was beyond repair and if I strip it and find that to be the case, the only thing I could presumably do is cover it back up again with something that is heavily pigmented?


So you didn't say scrape, you said "scape", which I can see now was a typo. I'd like to do that, but I am a bit wary because there are no sections that are not easily visible so if I start stripping I will be in for a pound.

I think it's a Tony Blair moment. 'Things can only get better'. It's a three second 'that's going to need stripping' evaluation.

Whatever is underneath it will look better once you have stripped it.

The lines fooled me too, I thought they were pine growth rings poking through, looking carefully at them again it looks like brush marks, looks like a clear finish over a pigmented one. It's kind of irrelevant whats on there, it needs to come off.

Traditional way is with DCM and extra coarse wire wool, but I start off with a scraper.

Please send photos of the top of the newel where there is a button or monkey tail (round bit at end) and more of the curved section.

Seems totally bizairre if they have made a jig to steam bend the curved sections or carved it out of a massive block of mahogany only to put caps on, I mean always expect the unexpected, but it would be the first of many hundred I have seen, over decades, with such a feature. (*which I recall, of course, I might go ooooooohhhh)

And don't worry, even if a maniac has glued parana pine caps on, we can make it look better than it is right now.

Anyway, lets hope for the best, if they are caps and they are fitted over a mahogany rail (still sceptical ) then maybe they were added to improve the looks?

Maybe a chap bought the house and gasped in horror when he saw the bannisters? 'My God man! This handrail appears to be fashioned from Honduran mahogany! you'd better make me some Cuban top caps double quick or my wife shall feint upon the sight of it!'.

FYI. If the rail turns out to be Cuban and you uncover chattoyant flames, then you have to send me a large box of chocolates.

 

[Toby Newell]

This what I am going on, a blurred image of 2 square inches of pigment... see the little roundish holes? They look like mahogany grain (could be walnut at a stretch) 99% of handrails are pine, oak or mahogany. Oak, elm and ash have a similar and much bigger, elongated grain and the grain in pine is so small it cannot be seen with the naked eye.



This just tells me there is damage here. Possibly indicates caps.



All this tells me is the wood is light brown, which narrows it down to about 95% of species.



More round holes, inferring mahogany.



You must never discount madness when humans are involved, you don't need to switch on the news for 5 seconds to work that out... but rational logic would point to the possibility that if the base rail is mahogany and it's steam bent and they went to the trouble of fitting a veneer cap, then it probably was because the veneer was more expensive and better looking.

Glueing a turd onto a piece of carved, solid mahogany seems like a less probable course of action.

Absolutely no one does this sort of caper after the fact, they simply paint the rail or fit a new one, this would indicate the construction is contemperaneous and in period. There is a possibility therefore that the wood is quite pretty underneath.

Why are you not scraping yet?