Refinishing & Restoring a Heywood Wakefield Buffet

At The Restoration Studio, we specialize in Heywood Wakefield refinishing. I was excited to do a shoot on some Heywake furniture and let our members in on some of my techniques. This buffet gave me a good opportunity to show you a few different things any serious Heywood enthusiast should know.  This particular buffet was in rough shape!  It needed a total reglue, along with refinishing. Below, you can see the condition it arrived in.

Below: You can see in this picture, the glue joints on both the top and sides failed! This is a common repair issue on Heywood Wakefield. Repairing this correctly will require some Titebond wood glue, at least two bar clamps, a Phillips head screw driver

and a hammer.

Our first step is to remove the top.  We'll do that by removing the screws inside the case that attach the top to the side.

We'll then remove the screws holding the center panels to the top.

 Now that we have the screws out, you can see in the pic below that there was no glue holding the top boards together

anymore, and they easily came apart as soon as I moved them.

This top consists of three boards. The one closest to the back is still attached to the back panel by nails. These nails can be

removed if you need to.

Next step is to take the side to top attachment block off of the top of the side panel. It's attached by nails, so upward

force from a hammer will be required to remove it.

 We're ready to remove the nails, scrape off any old glue &  re-glue the side panels. Spread glue evenly on all the side

edge surfaces. To assemble, We are just going to reverse the steps we followed when we took it apart. It's important that

you have the seams flat. Otherwise you'll have a lot of extra sanding to do.

Now that both sides are glued up and clamped, we can put the top together. Start at the back by replacing those nails

we pulled out through the back panel on the rear board.

Apply glue to the rail that holds the top to the side.

Next, lay out the next two top boards and spread glue on the edge surfaces. Now we can replace the screws from the

underside. Be sure the screws go in the original holes. Once it's screwed back in place, you can go ahead and clamp it up.

After the glue is dry, remove the clamps and fill all the seams with wood putty.

After the wood putty is dry, we are ready for The second phase of the job.

Part Two :  Finish Removal

Enjoy This Video,  as Rod shows you how he removes the finish without using chemical stripper, and preps for staining.

Part Three   :  Staining Heywood Wakefield Furniture

Enjoy This Video, as Rod will show you how to Stain this Heywood Wakefield buffet Champagne.

Below : The Restored Buffet, Finished in Champagne.

Happy Finishing!