Old Easel Restoration

Someone has left an easel on a pavement as a "give away". I've decided to take it and bring it back to life.

An idea was to use it as an exposition stand for one of the paintings I have.

Please note that some steps were done in a different order than presented below. Some work was done in parallel to another. Steps were grouped mostly based by "topic".

Tools:

• Sand papers - different densities
• Rotary tool
• Anti dust mask

Materials:

• A wood stain and optional a transparent paint for wood
• Glue for wood
• Small parts which were missing or broken
• Door latch (link)
• 2 hinges 100mm x 25mm
• 2 knobs, 2 screws and 2 washers - squeezing mechanisms
• 2 screws 5mm x 40mm

I've done disassembling at the same time when I was removing paint. Some screws were covered with rust so the plan was to replace them with new ones.

I had to remove old black paint first. Initially I wanted to use a dedicated solvent but I was afraid it may damage the wood. So I decided to remove the paint using a sand paper. This means a lot of sanding.

Remember to use the anti dust mask every time you sand something!

Inhaled particles may damage your lungs or poison you.

The paint was a kind of wood stain with some lacquer for wood (?). Mostly it hasn't penetrated the wood too deep so it was relatively straightforward to remove it - but it needed a lot of work. Unfortunately in some places the old paint sunk too deep into the wood. You can see some stains of the old paint left. They had to stay they there. Otherwise I would need to scratch the wood too much leaving the surface destroyed.

The stains left are a way to make look the wood old. Later on I want to use a brown wood stain (an oak). At this moment I just hope the old stains will combine with the new colour making the easle looks old.

For some places I needed to be creative in removing old paint. I've used a rotary tool and a custom sand paper with wood parts tool to access holes and "valleys".

I'm not an "easle expert" so I I haven't noticed that the easle was wrongly assembled! When I was trying to check how does the locking mechanism work, I've noticed that something is not right. I've compared this easle with some photos of other easles and I've noticed that the middle part with holes must facing to the front. It looks like somebody has disassembled it and has made this mistake assembling it back.

Luckily the parts were glued only using a hot glue so using a rubber hammer I was able to split them very easy.

A first place needed to be fixed was a middle bottom bar. I've removed as much of old paint from the crack as possible.

Then I've applied as much glue into it as possible by pressing it inside with a knife. After squeezing it very hard, some glue came out - what was a good sign. It means an enough amount of wood glue was applied within the crack. After removing an excessive glue I've left the squeezed construction to dry for some hours.

The final result is really good. The bar looks straight and there is no "bump" anymore. The crack line is still visible but I hope it will be less visible after applying a wood stain later.

The old hinge dimensions: 50+50mm x 25mm. I've bought a new ones but unfortunately holes didn't fit. So I decided to fill the old holes with pegs and glue. I will drill new holes later on.

When I was unscrewing one of the hinges, one of the rusted screw has broken. Half of the screw has left inside a hole. This was very unlucky as removing such a broken screw may be hard.

I decided to widen a hole first, then to drill around the screw using a rotary tool. Then I was able to remove the old broken screw in 2 parts from the hole. Doing this I've felt like a dentist, drilling in a tooth.

Then I've applied a peg, cut it and I've sand it the same way as other holes.

I've realized that a single hinge fits to the bottom part of the easel (30mm wide) but the vertical bars don't (20mm wide). I couldn't use tighter hinge because holes could interfere with the big hole for a horizontal supporting bar. That's why I've decided I will file one part of a hinge to 20mm. The forces are not that big in that place so it shouldn't decrease the durability of a hinge. If it will become a problem in the future - I will replace hinges again.

The original latch was missing. So i've bought a spring latch - originally used to lock a window. The only requirement was that a peg must be a cylindrically shaped so it fits to the round holes in the middle part of the easle.

In one of the legs there was a big crack. Part of the wood was dangling. I decided to fix it by cutting out the wood around the crack, replace it with some extra wood part and shape it accordingly. I've used a rotary tool and sand paper.

Shape of the final result was really good. On that moment I hope the colour difference will equalize after a wood stain usage later on.

There were also many other small cracks to fix. I've used a special paste to fill holes in wood. There is a colour difference between the wood and the paste, but I see it as an expected result.

Somebody has used a hot glue to connect wooden parts of the easel. I had to remove as much of it as I could.

At the same time I had to trim it so the easel parts fits perfectly and it doesn't wobble.

The most challenging in this step was to adjust the connection parts so the bottom stand stays evenly. I had to remove the old hot glue remains and adjust the "plugs" to the "sockets".

Assembling a stand was done in 2 steps. First the middle vertical part and then two on the sides attached to the middle one.

As previously a challenging thing was to adjust the connection parts. Old hot glue remains had to be removed.

I didn't want to make it too dark so I've picked a stain colour of oak wood. To do it I've used a foam. Other possibilities are a rug and a brush.

After it dries the surface becomes a little bit "rough". Therefore it needs to be polished with a high granular sand paper (400+).

I've used an old hole (the middle one in the bottom part) as a guidance.

Screws used were 3mmx20mm, so I've used a 2mm drill (it was hard to find one for wood so I've used one for metal).

Old squeezing mechanism was full of rust. Also when it was squeezed, it was destroying a wood!

I had to replace it with something else so forces were spread on a bigger area.

The difference than previous solution is that knobs are on the inside. Luckily it doesn't affect sliding the stand part.

The old screw was rusted and it looks like it was a screw for a metal and not for a wood.

But before just replacing them, I had to file a part where the wood touches the screw so it is not destroyed on every movement.

Initially I wanted to paint it with some lacquer for a protection. But after staining the wood and usage of sand paper I'm happy with the result. I decided to not apply any more paint on it.

The result was better than I expected. The colour difference between the replaced wood part in a bottom stand was equalized by applying a wood stain. All mechanisms work now as the easle were brand new.