Jacobean panelling.

[Goatgirl22]

Hi, have just joined Period Property and need some advice. Our timber framed house has the original Jacobean panelling and is in need of some TLC. I
what is the best way to clean it/polish it. Structurally it is fine but just seems to have lost condition a bit in the very hot weather. I was advised in the pastt to oil it with a mix of boiled linseed oil, turps and meths but was never very convinced this was the best for it. Some advised to leave it alone. It is very much in its original condition.
Any advice welcome.

 

[Cubist]

Hi There and Welcome,

The mixture suggested to you sounds like someones poor interpretation of one of the traditional concoctions. Turps and meths will both operate as thinners of the linseed oil and also soften the extant surface finish to allow the removal of dirt and greasy deposits. Common practice is to use methylated sprits alone for this purpose and, to me, adding turps seems like overkill. The mixture of meths and boiled linseed is typically applied with a fine wire wool in small circular motions and the wool discarded when it becomes clogged and replaced with a new piece. The new oil is deposited by this same action and can be polished with soft lint free cloths to produce a sheen. If you proceed with this approach be careful to polish the wood soon after application as heavy deposits of oil may become sticky and grubby fairly quickly.

Also, be careful not to load too much of the mixture onto the wire wool as unnoticed drips/spreading may damage the existing finish. Also, it would be wise not to be overzealous when using this approach as you are at risk of producing patchy results.

May I ask; I'm assuming the panelling has been exposed to strong sunlight and that's the source of the 'tired' look, is this recent?

 

[Goatgirl22]

Hi,
Thank you very much for your speedy reply It is most helpful. In the mists of time I think I have probably mostly forgotten what I was told.
The panelling is quite varied in it's condition. I actually have 2 rooms of panelling. In the dining room which has the oldest panelling and is quite a dark room, it is mostly fine and I have never touched it. There are some panels mostly very accessible ones (easy working height) that are quite thick with crazed/rough deposits of what you are probably referring to when it goes sticky and grubby and I presume they do need cleaning off properly and re-oiling as you describe. There are some that look a bit dry as well.
In the other room the panelling I think is a bit newer (not much - still very old) but has a very large window and is very light. The wood has gone to look dull (no rough deposits) mostly directly opposite the window - I moved a winged armchair from in front of it and it was fine behind it.!

I did find a bit of "Lord Sheraton's Liquid Gold" furniture restorer in the back of the cupboard and rubbed a bit of that on which seems to have perked it up a bit -What do you think?
The panelling in both rooms is about 10 to 12 ft high and all seems fine high up, it seems that the problems may have been more from interfering with it.

Should I just oil it? or wax it? Boiled or raw linseed? Anything else I should do with it? or other products or methods?

We don't use the rooms much usually only Christmas or a bit of entertaining, so probably missed out on a bit of attention over the last few years. There is no heat in them apart from when we use them with an open fire and a wood burner - so largely undisturbed for most of the time.

Any extra advice most welcome

 

[Cubist]

Hello Again,

Before going any further, a few words of caution and some questions.

Obviously these are very large panels and their age is unclear to me but - it is safest to assume that they may be considered antiques in their own right and may be very valuable. As such I would be extremely cautious about any treatment that may damage them further in any way. Their value may also be harmed by the removal of the patina they have acquired over their lives.

Is the house listed? What do you know about the history of the house and in particular the panelling? Any ideas as to when the panelling was installed?

Given the size of some these panels simply cleaning them could be difficult and applying a new finish could be a long job/project; do you have suitable equipment and, forgive me, the personal physical ability to do the work? Please be aware that leaning a ladder against such panels could damage or destroy them.

As to the specific problem symptoms you are seeing.

Sadly, the fading resulting from sunlight can be very hard to remedy successfully as the loss of colour is not restricted to just the coating. The wood beneath may have been bleached to such an extent where, if it is to be fully restored, the old finish must be entirely removed from all the panel areas; even those that are not faded. The faded area would then be treated with a mix of dyes and pigments to blend its colour with that of the surrounding areas. Simply mixing the dyes to achieve this is a highly skilled task and achieving a seamless blend is an art form in its own right.

Its important to know what the panels were originally finished with and perhaps if other coating have been applied over the original sometime during the life of the panels. For now I would follow the guidance of the antiques experts and restrict my efforts to simple cleaning with damp cloths - you may be surprised just how much grime is removed in this way. The furniture restorer you mention, or something similar, can then be used to enhance the finish but, given the size of those rooms, you will need a lot of it.

Determining what the original finish may have been, and how its been treated since installation will need closer and perhaps slightly invasive examination. Can you share some photographs off the affected areas please?

 

[Feltwell]

If you've got old, historic panelling like that I would get expert advice. If you search for posts on here by Toby Newell, he would be the man I would ask. He is a tradesman, it is his living, so it is an option to ask him to do the work.

https://newellwoodworks.co.uk/

 

[Toby Newell]

Hi, have just joined Period Property and need some advice. Our timber framed house has the original Jacobean panelling and is in need of some TLC. I
what is the best way to clean it/polish it. Structurally it is fine but just seems to have lost condition a bit in the very hot weather. I was advised in the pastt to oil it with a mix of boiled linseed oil, turps and meths but was never very convinced this was the best for it. Some advised to leave it alone. It is very much in its original condition.
Any advice welcome.

Hi

No, no and no and possibly no, I would have to reread all the posts.

Please send photos, as many ass possible. Very hard to tell without seeing in person. Direct sunlight damages timber and finishes as it contains UV radiation, also heat.

In general to prevent this, remove the sun, ie cover window, or cover the surface ie paint with a pigment or a clear varnish / lacquer with a UV inhibitor (less efficient) the worst treatment would be oil and the worst oil is linseed, horrible stuff, ok to flick a few drops onto your table when rubbering up when French polishing but all other times best left in the history books.

Linseed oil, turps and meths is an absurd misheard Chinese whisper. Meths and turps are not miscible meths and oil are not miscible, mixing and applying them will result in a ruined ungodly sticky mess as will doing small circles karate kid style even with 0000 wire wool.

How do you know its oiled? It could be shellacked or shellacked and waxed? Much more likely or if you are really lucky, Amber vanished (shellac with resin, goes unbelievably sticky if you even breath solvent onto it) if it's cracked, perished and brittle it's shellac or Amber varnish, in which case a new Stanley blade or cabinet scraper can remove most of it.

FYI I used to make my own furniture reviver, was something like icr, but maybe 70 -80 turps ( least aggressive but removes wax and grime) maybe 10 -20% meths (more aggressive, too much will melt shellac, shellac is a reversible finish, as is wax, oil finishes are not, they convert) around 10% water, a few drops of washing up liquid and a few drops of Brasso for burnishing and a few drops of concentrated water DYE or naphtha based stain (to avoid the white in the grain residue effect, although this can be removed by waxing with a brush sometimes) sometimes I added a few drops of oil. I am presuming this is the Chinese whisper that got converted to what one might expect to be equal parts oil, turps and meths, which would be amusing, but not in a good way.

If you are unsure, do nothing, it's quite possible to make things a lot worse.

Does your timber need protecting? Maybe, but applying layers of sticky hilarity is not the way forward, simply block the light like they used to do. Will your wood die? Well, I have just finished restoring some 500 - 630 yr old pine and oak, I'm pretty sure there are a few hundred years left in your panels, however dry and cracked they get ( unless of course they are 'Jacobean' rather than Jacobean and made from plywood veneer instead of solid)

Anyway, send photos, I have restored dozens and dozens of 'Jacobean' oak panels both solid and veneered plywood, but I cannot recall ever working on real Period Jacobean panels. T

Oh and being Period Jacobean it is obviously in 'a condition' that is very possibly not original, I expect you meant to articulate that it looks old and thus to your mind traditional which your brain assumed was historic. If is has never been stripped (very rare) you may retain some original dirt.

 

[Athers1971]

I'm sort of in the same predicament. We have some wood panelling in the hall that looks like it was once plastered over; lots of nail holes where the lath may have sat. My uneducated guess is that this is late 17th early 18th, but only from seeing similar stuff on sale on the old Internet. I'm thinking the vertical marks are perhaps where the plaster touched the wood. They now form a wall separating a reception room from the hallway, i.e they are plastered on the back somehow. I doubt they were an original feature of our modest two-unit house, but were brought in from something more grand?

Would be interested to know how best to give these a quick 'tidy up'

 

[Toby Newell]

I'm sort of in the same predicament. We have some wood panelling in the hall that looks like it was once plastered over; lots of nail holes where the lath may have sat. My uneducated guess is that this is late 17th early 18th, but only from seeing similar stuff on sale on the old Internet. I'm thinking the vertical marks are perhaps where the plaster touched the wood. They now form a wall separating a reception room from the hallway, i.e they are plastered on the back somehow. I doubt they were an original feature of our modest two-unit house, but were brought in from something more grand?

Would be interested to know how best to give these a quick 'tidy up'

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Beautiful, some nice medullary rays there, the lathe hypothesis, hmmmm, severe lack of white lime in the grain and little to no bleaching / burning says no, but could be. Get some Harrells wax if you want an easy life or some Mylands traditional if you want forearms like popeye (harder, more canuba) there's not really a middle road, just wax and buff or strip with dcm, clean with soda then shellac and wax.

Pretty sure I wrote articles on here shortly after website was created in 2006, also several tens of thousand word articles on my website, I see I am going to have to do a post on wood finishing AGAIN.

 

[Toby Newell]

I'm sort of in the same predicament. We have some wood panelling in the hall that looks like it was once plastered over; lots of nail holes where the lath may have sat. My uneducated guess is that this is late 17th early 18th, but only from seeing similar stuff on sale on the old Internet. I'm thinking the vertical marks are perhaps where the plaster touched the wood. They now form a wall separating a reception room from the hallway, i.e they are plastered on the back somehow. I doubt they were an original feature of our modest two-unit house, but were brought in from something more grand?

Would be interested to know how best to give these a quick 'tidy up'

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Tbh they look pretty tatty but actually they look like exactly what you say, late 1600s to early 1700s, English oak, lots of quarter figure, hand planed, peg and tennon construction, what you would call 'honest' not flashy, just historic, hand made from very good quality timber, imho the loveliest type of stuff, as I said, a clean with a stiff brush and vacuum followed by a wipe over with a damp cloth, coat of quality beeswax and buff will give a little extra sheen but panels of this age and quality really deserve to be restored. Oak of this type really strip and cleans up very well.

It's quite messy but would be very rewarding.

Strip with DCM stripper, I just bought 5l of Paramose industrial from Jenkins, tbh you can buy on ebay for £47 delivered, you will need some no 5 wire wool, British made MW brand is best and a cabinet scraper, Sandvik/Bahco are the best, strip clean, neutralise, preferably immediately after stripping whilst stripper is still soft in the grain with boiling hot soda water and a very stiff nylon brush, you will create tons of 'dirty' brown water. Then you apply a boiling hot solution of oxalic acid, let dry then wash off, this will remove a lot of the iron staining around the nail holes and clean up the wood, it may take the wood down a shade but will not kill the colour like a modern two part peroxide. Which should NEVER be used on old timbers.

Wash off a couple of times, apply a coat or two of Mylands 2000 Shellac sanding sealer sanding each coat, the first one you will really go to town getting it perfectly smooth, a stearated silicon carbide paper like Sia 1748 P240 grit and a few fine sanding sponges are all you need and is very satisfying if you haven't used professional quality products before. Then brush and vacuum and apply a coat or two of Harrells or Mylands wax, the other faux wax bs mentioned are pretty pointless, the two mentioned are the best you can get, I have used both in the last week on 600 yr old beams, the Harrells is softer so I apply that as a first coat with a brush, the Mylands has the highest carnauba content so is a lot harder to rub off but builds a quicker sheen, that Sheratons rubbish is a really thinned out low quality beeswax, Briwax, don't go there. (Runny wax = incredibly, amusingly stupid, you want a stiff wax that hardens quickly and is easy to buff, runny wax = double or triple solvent content = just as you finish buffing your cloth will pick up effectively fresh solvent from a hole/shake/quirk which will dissolve the wax you just buffed and make it smear, forcing you to let it dry and rebuff or if it leaves a streak rewax and rebuff. Waxing is laborious and tedious and tiring at the best of times, if you are a masochist or want to recreate groundhog day then get the runny stuff) You will also need a no. 10 mixed hair polishing mop to apply the shellac, Jackson or ASHandover do the cheapest prices, it will last you a lifetime.I am about to use a 25 year old worn no 10 mop, which I somewhat foolishly have donated to my client because he is interested in this stuff, to apply coloured matt shellac to some beams. I believe it is (was) actually my only goat hair, which take a long time to soften up, it may be around half it's original size but after quarter of a century, it still works great and is nice and soft! Just incase you think £21 is a lot for brush, it's actually stupendous value and in fact the current prices on Jacksons are far cheaper than at Jenkins, Mylands or anywhere else, cheaper than 25 years ago, no idea why.

Applying the shellac will feel magical, as will sanding it, the issues are the stripping is a pig and very messy and the waxing is tiring.

Or you can just marvel at it as it is. Interesting how you would want to fit oak panels then lathe them!