Is this banister mahogany and how to restore it?

[Lithgae]

Before I do any scraping, I would need to be prepared for what to do next. I work full time, have a 9 year old and multiple other jobs needing done around the house, so I don't have masses of spare time. If I am going to do this in a hallway that is in use, I would need to plan ahead. I would expect that there are two scenarios.

Scenario 1: I scrape it all off and the wood is in good condition. It then needs to be coated again, which I believe is done with shellac/french polish. I had understood this to be a specialist job. Do you think this likely to be something that I can DIY after a bit of background reading?

Scenario 2: I strip it all off and find out that there is a reason it has been covered up with this pigmented coating, i.e. the wood is a mess. In that scenario, how would I get it back to how it is now? Is there some sort of pigmented shellac that I can buy that would cover it back up again?

I did take some time today to try rubbing some meths on a less visible spot, and the brown coating was coming off on the rag. I had read that Meths dissolves Shellac but not other coatings, and I thought this might help identify whether the coating was Shellac or something else. It started to come off a bit on to the rag with the Meths, so I went at the bottom end of the banister and the pics below are after. The grain of the wood is a bit more visible now and it does seem that the wood on the veneered caps is nicer than the wood that the rest of the railing is made of.

 

[Toby Newell]

lol. lol. and lol.

Everyone is busy.

It looks a million times better already, you are welcome.

Might be mahogany or walnut..
Instructions on my website, unless you want me to hold your hand going pee pee...

Medium / Coarse wire wool, Paramose (DCM) stripper, work along the grain, neutralise with meths, coat with whatever you like, 4 or 5x coats shellac (I do more like 8-10 but even 2-3 and wire and wax looks nice) Coat with no 14 Zorino mixed hair polishing mop.

Cut final coat back with fine sanding sponge, then apply a couple of coats of beeswax and carnauba with 0000 wire wool along the grain, which appears to be transverse.

And yes, I have feint recollection of maybe seeing this before but only once or twice, I think the veneer caps were in either Rosewood or Zebrano. Yours appear to be mahogany or walnut, hard to see as faded.

It's a feature, not a fault, the aesthetic being the counter running grain.

Looks smart, quite a rare feature, from the curve I can see this was an expensive install. Nice, quirky and rare handrail, thanks for the photos. God knows why they doped it to high heaven.

If you want it to really pop, then apply a very weak van dyke water stain before the shellac to increase the contrast and show off any chattoyancy.

 

[Toby Newell]

lol. lol. and lol.

Everyone is busy.

It looks a million times better already, you are welcome.

Might be mahogany or walnut..
Instructions on my website, unless you want me to hold your hand going pee pee...

Medium / Coarse wire wool, Paramose (DCM) stripper, work along the grain, neutralise with meths, coat with whatever you like, 4 or 5x coats shellac (I do more like 8-10 but even 2-3 and wire and wax looks nice) Coat with no 14 Zorino mixed hair polishing mop.

Cut final coat back with fine sanding sponge, then apply a couple of coats of beeswax and carnauba with 0000 wire wool along the grain, which appears to be transverse.

And yes, I have feint recollection of maybe seeing this before but only once or twice, I think the veneer caps were in either Rosewood or Zebrano. Yours appear to be mahogany or walnut, hard to see as faded.

It's a feature, not a fault, the aesthetic being the counter running grain.

Looks smart, quite a rare feature, from the curve I can see this was an expensive install. Nice, quirky and rare handrail, thanks for the photos. God knows why they doped it to high heaven.

If you want it to really pop, then apply a very weak van dyke water stain before the shellac to increase the contrast and show off any chattoyancy.

As regards date, this looks more later Georgian / early Victorian to me than late Victorian.

You should really concentrate on stripping it very throughly and giving it a light sand (by hand! I would use a P150 to try and remove the bleached layer you could strip with simply 00 or no 1 wire wool if you want to preserve the faded look)

It's possible you will reveal variagated light and dark flames, it could be a stunner. Looks high quality.

 

[Lithgae]

You are an unusual individual. On one hand you have been very informative and helpful, on the other hand you seem to be unable to prevent yourself from throwing in a few insults/condescension in every other post!

I agree this is likely Georgian. The home report says 1885 construction, but I think they have been fooled by the later addition of a bay window. I can see a slightly different grain in the stone of the bay section and the earliest proper town map shows a property on this site in 1820.

As much as I would love to strip it and try my hand at making it pop once again, I think this is a project for another time. I will keep a hold of the instructions above though, and your website is also excellent. For the moment I think I will just cut the rest back a little, like I have done with the bottom section then maybe I could use some wax to protect it until I have time to come back to it. I also need to try and get some glue under the sections that are lifting before I do anything else. I also the very worn stone staircase to figure out.

I also thought you might be interested in the link below, if you have not already seen this. https://georgiangroup.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Georgian_Stairs_by_N.Burton-s.pdf

On page 6 it says:
"As early as the 1720s mahogany began to be used for handrails and it remained the favourite handrail material for the whole of the 18th century. Although the earliest mahogany handrails may be solid, lacer ones were usually made with a softwood core and a mahogany veneer."

which seems to suggest that veneer was quite common.

There is also a pic on page 37 which says the "handrail is clearly veneered with mahogany", and although the pic is not very clear, you can see the same faint lines of the separate veneered sections.

Thanks for all the information.

 

[Toby Newell]

You are an unusual individual. On one hand you have been very informative and helpful, on the other hand you seem to be unable to prevent yourself from throwing in a few insults/condescension in every other post!

I agree this is likely Georgian. The home report says 1885 construction, but I think they have been fooled by the later addition of a bay window. I can see a slightly different grain in the stone of the bay section and the earliest proper town map shows a property on this site in 1820.

As much as I would love to strip it and try my hand at making it pop once again, I think this is a project for another time. I will keep a hold of the instructions above though, and your website is also excellent. For the moment I think I will just cut the rest back a little, like I have done with the bottom section then maybe I could use some wax to protect it until I have time to come back to it. I also need to try and get some glue under the sections that are lifting before I do anything else. I also the very worn stone staircase to figure out.

I also thought you might be interested in the link below, if you have not already seen this. https://georgiangroup.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Georgian_Stairs_by_N.Burton-s.pdf

On page 6 it says:
"As early as the 1720s mahogany began to be used for handrails and it remained the favourite handrail material for the whole of the 18th century. Although the earliest mahogany handrails may be solid, lacer ones were usually made with a softwood core and a mahogany veneer."

which seems to suggest that veneer was quite common.

There is also a pic on page 37 which says the "handrail is clearly veneered with mahogany", and although the pic is not very clear, you can see the same faint lines of the separate veneered sections.

Thanks for all the information.

I dont tend to read such stuff as its normally incorrect, as this appears, normally middle or upper class academic types reading history, ie books, probably has less than 35,000 hours in tne field, where the evidence lies. Comparable to an archeologist expert who has never been on a dig or talked to anyone ever, who has. This is maybe the second out of probably over a thousand period hand rails I have seen that is veneered, so that info is bunkum.

You might say 'but you only work on domestic houses' to which I would counter au contraire, British Museum, The Law Society, The Palace of Westminister, The Royal Courts of Justice to name but a few, a fair number of manor houses and fine churches to boot, I have polished the book case of the head of the English bar at the RCJ, the doors to the Moses room in Westminister and the room of the deputy prime minister and the room of the bloke in tights that walks backwards and knocks on the door with his black rod... to name but a few.

I am a trained French polisher (3rd generation, 7th generation decorative finisher) with City and Guilds in wood finishing and antique restoration, I think the author simply read some old texts. I have a wonderful late C19th leather bound book by Clauston on Chippendale period English furniture which my Grandfather neglected to return to Shoreditch library. It shows wonderful engravings including many of Chippendales Rococo and Chinoisie designs that he never executed. Same thing here. He has not much of a clue bless him, the internet is full of such reductionist information. He's not very experienced. For example I can show you barley twist and other carved bannister types which he puports to be Georgian, actually they are a Queen Anne design and Hugh Thackery Turner sought to recreate them in the main entrance to my flats, I can pop and take a picture, they were executed in 1901... he is making false, reductive illogical inferences based on his limited working knowledge.

Interior design and furniture were inextricably linked all the way into the C20th.

The Georgian period spanned over a century so you have to be a bit more specific. Early on you would of had pine, walnut and oak handrails. More pine and oak in the country and more walnut in the towns.

From the mid 1700s which you could say was prime Chippendale period you had a lot of mahogany, mostly round and basic. Towards the last quadrant of the 1700s you started to get more elaboration, in more elegant town houses, with molded sections and undercuts.

Your type of carcass construction is extremely rare counter to the laughable information you have read, primarily because it was so expensive. One has to make a jig for every turn and steam bending had a 10 to 30% failure rate, then you have to cut and apply the veneers.

It would imply to me that your house is quite nice and in a quite nice area. These rare veneered rails were often topped with rosewood, zebrano, walnut as well as mahogany. From the shape of the button and the crosswise veneer I would say this is quite late Georgain 1820s onwards, it appears very Regency period to me.

Waxing and restoring when you have the time is a great idea. Its quite easy to do and the reward will be great. The only issue is deciding whether to very gently strip with wire wool to preserve the bleaching or to sand to reveal the magnificent original colours. Either will look great. Seems bonkers someone covered it up with dope!

I have not received any payment for my expertise and time and so pay myself with a light trolling of some of your more amusing comments, like how a thin dye can improve what is effectively a thin layer of red paint... and is it going to look worse, which thankfully has shown to be very much not the case.

I am looking forward to the finished pictures!