How to restore your Dad's old desk to former glories

Used and Abused: Before the first sanding

I got my hand's on my father's old desk with the intention of restoring it to former glories.

My Dad had used it for years as a study desk both when studying at university and then as a teacher.

When when my brother went to University, he took it so he could have somewhere to store his beer and comics on. As a result, it was rooted and needed some love.

Here are the steps I took to renovate the desk and give it a new life in my home!

Note: I'm no expert when it comings to DIY renovations, I just made this shit up as I went remembering things from woodwork class back in the day. Key things to remember (and learned from past experiences elsewhere)  - do not cheap out on sand paper, paint brushes or satin. Use quality products!

Step 1.

Clean the desk. Wipe away the spider webs, coachroach shit, beer stains and god knows what else has built up over the years. Take your kick ass sander and sand the shit out of every piece of wood you see - use a low grit sandpaper. I used 60 grit and make sure its some quality paper.

Don't cheap out like Don Brash on a dinner date.

Step 2.

Done sanding?

No you are not.

Get a hearth brush and clean the sand residue off.

Then wet a rag with water and wash the desk off from top to bottom.

Let is dry.

Step 3.

If your desk is a bit warped and the panels creaky, this is the time I decided to reglue them back together. I possibly should have done this as Step 1. Whatever, learning is part of life.

Get some PVA wood glue and a T-bar clamp or 2 and glue the panels you want back together. Leave overnight to make sure the glue has worked it's magic. If the wood is warped, you may be in for a battle to keep things straight, so say a prayer to Obi-Wan Kenobi or something.

Note to self: Glue before sanding!

Step 4.

Yip, I know you made a mess during step 3 so sand any PVA glue remains off.

Now here come's a suck-ass part. You now have to resand the entire desk again to get rid of the 'roughage' that the initial sand left.

Time to use a finer grit sandpaper - give your desk some love with at least a 120 grit - I did a round with some 150 and then did another sanding round with 180 grit. Again clean with a broom etc, wash down with water.

A well sanded desk. 

Step 5.

You are now ready for the last, and most fun part - the staining of the desk.

The stain makes the desk looks nice and also gives it a protection from the 'elements' like beer being spilled on it.

For this desk, I chose a nice kauri satin, my reasoning being the wood was light in colour and would suit whatever wood the desk actually is made from.

In a dust free area, apply the stain evenly with a quality brush.

And by quality, I mean one that will not start to lose bristles half way through the job.

Look for any areas of excess and even out. Depending on the product you are using they may suggest to wipe off with a cloth.

I say directions are for pussies. Just do what feels right..... leave to dry overnight in a dust free area.

Actually, follow the instructions properly and leave to dry overnight.

Nice satin Kauri finish

Step 6.

Find some  matching handles for the drawers. Put them in place and you're done:

Step 7.

Put some beer and comics on the desk.

You're done!

Congratulations. You now have a really nicely restored old desk. You've earned yourself some Man Points. Go bake a bacon and egg pie to celebrate. Maybe watch some Star Wars.

How to restore an old manrobe

Three cheers for electric sandpaper or how I restored this chest of drawers aka The Manrobe

So the wife spied this manrobe on Trade Me and I thought, hell yeah, that'll do me. The bed in the spare room doesn't need to have ALL my clothes on it any more.... and after I restored this desk last year, how hard could it be?

So what's up first, what's the trick to making these drawers worthy of being a home to my Transformers T Shirt collection?

The first tip is too look for any loose joins or cracks and glue them up.

PVA was the glue of choice for wood working when I was at school so that's what I'll use know.

You'll note at the left of the picture a clamp to hold everything in place as the wood dries. A handy hint is to use a soft rubber mallet to knock the joins back in together (if it's apt). I find it's best to leave any glued bits to dry for 24 hours to give the glue enough time to dry. Which I did. Kind of, when it suited.

I then removed the door of the manrobe and the top of it too which revealed a hidden space for money, drugs and multi tool knives....

The next step in restoring this set of drawers was the longest and tough part. Sanding off the stain. So three cheers for electric sand paper. Start the process with a very course grit sandpaper. I used 60 and it ripped the stain off in no time. When using the sander, be deliberate with your strokes, don't put too much downwards pressure on the sander and keep the strokes in the same direction, going with the grain.

Did you hear me cowboy?

Go with the grain!!!

Next up is cleaning off the sand dust. Get a hearth brush and wipe it off. You could even think about using a damp towel to get the last of it off.

Then you have to repeat the above with a more fine sandpaper grit. I used 150.

I then dragged the heavy fucker out of the man shed and washed it all off with the hose and gave the drawers a damn good clean while I was at it. You know, to get rid of the old man smell....

Then you have to repeat the above with a more fine sandpaper grit. I used 180.

All that took me an age to do. But to paraphrase Jim Steinman, it rung out beautifully.

Now for the staining.

This can be some tricky shit.

What colour to you want? Dark or light?

Do you want all the marks and everything to be covered up? Do you want all the different bits of wood to match?

Do you want a variegated cacophony of wood to be on display? These punk, are the questions you gotta ask yourself. Well do ya punk, do you want the dark mahogany stain like I went for?

 Well do ya?

Remember that secret lid I talked about where your cocaine and knives can go?

This manrobe had a nice, light stain on the inside - I had some Kauri stain left over from another project so I gave it a nice spruce up. You can see from the picture to the left that it came up a pretty sweet shade.

If it's one thing I have learnt while staining wooden furniture it's this and I believe it's bloody good advice:

Check your work! 

Check that you haven't put too much stain on.

 \Gravity is a bitch and the stain can run down the side of your piece and make a right mess. Make sure you get the excess off with the brush - some brands of stain recommend using a cloth but I reckon that risks getting cotton or what not stuck in the finish.

After you've done the staining, give it half an hour and then check your work for runs, messes and misses.

In this particular case I did just that and caught a few drips here and there. I used a sharp cardboard knife cutter to scrape or cut the stain drips or 'clumps' off. I carefully then re-stained those areas. It's a pain in the ass but totally worth it.

Indeed, I was pretty risk adverse about the stain running so the door of the manrobe was placed on the work bench, all nice an flat so there was no chance of it getting messed up:

Once the first coat had dried for 24 hours, it was time for a second coat of dark mahogany stain. When that was all done, I was on the home stretch of this restoration project. I put the door on, and the flip up top, put the drawers all back in and I was done. Mission accomplished with a restored manrobe to be proud of:

How to connect your Iphone to the Xbox 360 and Xbox One

How to connect your Iphone's Wifi to the Xbox 360 and Xbox One (and Scorpio)

I was recently tidying chords behind the TV and I managed to break the internet when I un-plugged the modem - the connection to the ISP just couldn't be made.

I was gutted as I wanted to play some Dead Space but my game save was 'in the cloud' so I was prevented from playing.

I sat defeated cursing my first world problem. Whilst doing so I got a text message on my Iphone and I got a little twinkle in my eye.

I could try and use the Wifi Hotspot function the phone has and see if the Xbox 360 would accept that as a source of internet data.

The short answer, is yes, you can connect the iphone's wifi to the Xbox!

Here's how to connect the two devices:

• Turn your iphone's Personal Hot Spot on. 
• Turn on the Xbox
• If you have an ethernet plugged in to the xbox, remove it. 
• Go to the Network settings section of the Xbox
• Identify the wireless signal of your Iphone - it will be your Iphone's name. Select it.
• Enter the password of your hotspot wifi as given to you on the phone. 
• Once satisfied the connection has been made, sign into Xbox as per normal and you are away. 

Using your Iphone's data does run the risk of you blowing your datacap and and you'll possibly have limited connectivity via your 3G / 4G network so I doubt you'll be doing a multi-player marathon anytime soon but you should be able to access your saved games at the very least!

And don't do any game updates!

I imagine this little trick is also be able to be used by Android phones and the like that have the same wifi hotspot connections.

A subtle Oak, with a hint of dampness

I confess. I think I have an addiction to sand paper. I keep sanding things like desks and manrobes. Now I've gone and got a table to restore to former glories.

Another sweet deal from Trade Me, this nice Oak Table has kept me busy for the last couple of weeks.

Here's the restoration journey in pictures and some wooden attempts at whimsical prose.

We picked the table up from someone's storage shed and I got the feeling the table had been exposed to a little dampness. I started with the table top as that's easy pickings, using an old sander recently given to me by my Cousin. The stain came off very easy and what was exposed felt a little damp. I left it to gain some exposure to the drier climes of the living room fire and began to work on the other parts of the table.

I turned by attention to the legs of the table at which point the sander started sparking bright flashes, hissing like a cat cornered by the Vet and smoking like Thomas the Tank engine after a hot date so I went inside and watched Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy which was thoroughly entertaining spy film starring  Commissioner Gordon.

I wondered if any spy had ever been tortured with an electric sander to the face and then I went to bed.

I returned later and sanded the shit out of the table and chairs with my trusty Ryobi.

Chairs.

I don't think I'll ever be able to sand another chair for a while. They are really tough. Worse is the staining. So damn fiddly.

So the table and chairs were duly sanded and stained with a mahogany colour and the Oak wood responded marvellously and gave a orange like colour which I describe as Tiger.

The final part of the restoration was to cover the chairs. I got some nice leather-like chair covering from Spotlight (first willing trip to that place ever!), some hessian from a shopping bag a guns stapler.

Who knew gun staplers where so much fun? 600 hundred staples later, the chairs were presentable enough for Queen to sit on. Well kinda, my first effort was pretty rubbish, the final chair to be covered was pretty good!

Costs of the renovation:

Table and Chairs $180 from Trade Me
Stain - $50 bucks from Bunnings
Sand paper - $20 bucks from Bunnings
Chair covering - $35 bucks from Spotlight

All up $285 bucks which is a steal compared to buying the same thing in a fancy antique store somewhere where in Petone.

Here's the table in it's extended mode. It's like the Transformer of the table universe....

Did you know you can also add oak to your homebrew for better flavour?