This antique furniture restorer repaired old tambour doors to install them in a liquor cabinet within their customer's home. They got a sheet of medium density fireboard and cut it out to the required measurements before affixing it to the wooden door. They later cleaned the outer panel of the wood and painted it white before leaving it to dry overnight. Upon completion, they affixed both the doors to the liquor cabinet, thereby enhancing its appeal.
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00:00 I'm Tom Johnson, Thomas Johnson Antique Furniture Restoration in Gorham, Maine.
00:07 These are the tambour doors of a mid-century modern rosewood bar cabinet.
00:12 And you'll see the entire cabinet when I reinstall these in the customer's home.
00:17 I don't know why they're called tambour doors except the word tambour always involves things
00:22 that are round, like think like a tambourine for instance.
00:27 But what's happened here is the material has deteriorated and needs to be replaced.
00:33 The first thing I'm going to do is get a sheet of MDF, that's medium density fiberboard.
00:40 I want to cut a piece to create a flat surface to do this work on.
00:48 I'm going to use a round bit of MDF to cut a piece to length.
01:18 I'm going to cover this with wax paper to keep glue off of it.
01:44 I've got to get this handle off.
02:12 I've got to pry this board off.
02:16 And actually before I pry this board off, I'm going to mill up the boards to hold this
02:21 into place.
02:23 And I'll rab it out for those boards to accommodate the tongues on the door.
02:45 Okay, I'm going to screw these down but I've got to get this end board off first.
03:12 I'm going to hammer this in.
03:38 Yeah, this keeper was glued down.
04:04 That's unusual in my experience.
04:33 I'm going to hammer this in.
05:01 Okay.
05:06 I'm going to hammer this in.
05:36 There we go.
05:57 So I was getting a little tired of scraping it.
06:21 I tried a little heat with the heat gun but that really didn't seem to do too much.
06:26 So what I've done here is I've laid a wet towel on the fabric just for five minutes.
06:33 Yeah, the water didn't really seem to penetrate this much but as you can see, some of it's
06:41 ripping up anyway.
06:42 I'm not sure, I don't think the water had anything to do with that.
06:46 I don't want to soak it down because it would just make a big mess and the other side of
06:50 these is finished and water would creep down.
07:09 So, I'm going to do that.
07:37 Okay.
07:45 This is a heavy linen fabric we call mattress ticking.
08:14 (shuffling)
08:17 (footsteps)
08:19 (footsteps)
08:21 (footsteps)
08:24 (footsteps)
08:26 (sighs)
08:28 (footsteps)
08:30 (footsteps)
08:33 (footsteps)
08:35 (clanking)
08:39 (footsteps)
08:42 (clanking)
08:53 (footsteps)
09:00 (footsteps)
09:02 - I had also cut a second piece of MDF
09:19 covered with wax paper that would fit in here
09:22 on top of the fabric.
09:24 I just want to, it's not absolutely necessary to do this,
09:27 but I want to ensure that this is flat.
09:30 You can use any type of water-soluble glue.
09:37 (scraping)
09:45 (scrubbing)
09:53 (scraping)
09:56 (scraping)
10:12 (scraping)
10:14 (footsteps)
10:33 (clanking)
10:39 (footsteps)
10:41 (clanking)
10:57 (footsteps)
11:00 Okay, I'll let that dry overnight.
11:12 Well, okay, let's see what we got.
11:26 (footsteps)
11:28 All right, this went down nice and flat.
11:37 (drilling)
11:40 (drilling)
11:45 (drilling)
11:52 (clanking)
11:55 Just a quick note about the gloves I've been wearing.
12:12 I anticipate I'd get comments on that,
12:14 just like people used to comment all the time
12:17 on the bandages I had on my fingers.
12:19 You know, there's a high of 22 degrees today.
12:23 For my metric fans, that's minus five.
12:27 Humidity's 25, 30%.
12:29 And the cold shop, the cold tools,
12:32 was just killing the skin on my hands.
12:36 So I, as much as I can, I'm keeping these gloves on,
12:41 moisturize my hands.
12:42 I'll show you.
12:49 Just trying to keep 'em that way.
12:50 (clanking)
12:56 (clanking)
13:04 (clanking)
13:09 (clanking)
13:13 (clanking)
13:15 (drilling)
13:39 (drilling)
13:41 (drilling)
13:52 (clanking)
13:56 (scraping)
14:00 (scraping)
14:03 (scraping)
14:23 (scraping)
14:26 (scrubbing)
14:33 (scraping)
14:35 (scraping)
14:37 (scraping)
14:40 (scraping)
14:42 (scraping)
14:44 (scraping)
14:46 (scraping)
14:49 (clanking)
15:16 (clanking)
15:19 Okay, I let this dry overnight.
15:26 On the second door, I was, I actually did a much better job
15:33 of cutting the fabric and fitting it here.
15:36 This is a little bit off,
15:37 so I'm gonna trim up these edges a bit.
15:45 (scraping)
15:47 (clanking)
16:07 All right, these are the boards
16:10 that go on the inside of the doors,
16:13 you know, to which the, right on the inside center edge.
16:17 I've gotta clean them down and reattach 'em.
16:19 Boy, this glue just does not wanna scrape off.
16:27 I tried the heat, really seemed to have no effect,
16:31 which was my experience on the tambours themselves,
16:33 which ultimately didn't matter.
16:35 But what I've done here is soaked a little vinegar on it,
16:39 and that seems to be working fine.
16:41 (scraping)
16:43 Okay, let's see what we got.
16:46 Oh yeah, this is great.
17:05 (hissing)
17:10 (clanking)
17:12 Okay, I've gotta reinstall these strips
17:25 on the inside of the doors.
17:27 They were originally glued and nailed,
17:29 but I'm going to screw them down.
17:31 (hissing)
17:35 (hissing)
17:38 (hissing)
17:40 (scraping)
17:42 (scraping)
17:44 (scraping)
17:46 (scraping)
17:49 (scraping)
17:51 (scraping)
17:53 (scraping)
17:55 (scraping)
17:58 (scraping)
18:00 (scraping)
18:28 (hissing)
18:31 (scraping)
18:33 (scraping)
18:35 (hissing)
18:37 (scraping)
19:05 Okay, now I will get my kit
19:08 and go to the customer's house to install these.
19:11 Okay, here I am in the customer's home.
19:16 Got a well-stocked cabinet here.
19:18 We took the doors out from the front,
19:21 but they were in pieces.
19:23 I'm not sure if they're gonna go back in or not.
19:25 We're gonna find out.
19:26 The first thing I'm gonna do is vacuum these tracks
19:31 just to get any dust or anything out of there.
19:35 (vacuuming)
19:37 And now I'll wax these tracks as best I can.
19:43 I really can't get to in the back or anything.
19:46 And I'll also wax the doors,
19:56 you know, the, these tongues, if you will,
20:00 that are, that go in the slot.
20:03 (thudding)
20:05 So this opening of the cabinet is not a perfect square.
20:15 The top and bottom are curved.
20:19 So there's a much larger dimension here
20:20 in the center than there.
20:22 We were able to pull them out through the center,
20:26 but they were in pieces.
20:27 So let's see if it'll go back now that it's all together.
20:30 (vacuuming)
20:32 (scraping)
20:35 (scraping)
20:37 (scraping)
20:39 This is great.
21:07 (thudding)
21:08 One down.
21:09 Now I gotta do the other one the same way,
21:10 but I don't have this space available to me.
21:15 I'm not sure how this is gonna work.
21:18 Oh, I just realized this was kind of stuck there.
21:21 Something was holding it up,
21:23 but obviously it opens all the way.
21:27 And so now I have the room to do this.
21:29 (thudding)
21:34 (scraping)
21:36 (thudding)
21:38 (scraping)
21:40 (thudding)
21:43 (scraping)
21:45 (thudding)
22:14 All right, now I'm gonna go over the cabinet
22:17 with my orange oil beeswax polish.
22:20 (thudding)
22:31 (scraping)
22:38 (scraping)
22:41 So there you have it.
22:52 This is a really nice mid-century modern
22:55 rosewood bar cabinet made in the 1960s by Mobler.
23:00 And it was fine, except the fabric had deteriorated
23:04 on the back of these tambours.
23:06 (thudding)
23:08 And now it's fine.
23:13 I spent about eight hours on this job
23:15 that includes pickup and delivery.
23:18 And these are the tools I used.
23:20 I think it looks pretty good.
23:27 (scraping)
23:29 (thudding)
23:32 (thudding)
23:34 (wind blowing)
23:47 (wind blowing)
23:50 (wind blowing)
23:52 [BLANK_AUDIO]