Part 2: Singer Sewing Machine Restoration

This is part two of my client’s request. This was a restoration of a Singer Sewing machine that had also been sitting in a garage for decades, collecting dust, rust and bug skeletons.

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The veneer on this piece was so dry and thirsty that it only needed one coat of General Finishes Java Gel to rehydrate it. We had a lot of major repairs to do on the chipped veneer, but for the most part the prep was pretty easy.

This was probably the most tedious job so far even though there wasn’t anything really fancy about a fresh coat of stain. It was that the drawers, knobs, and the fold over part of the sewing machine had to wait their turns for stain. Even the rails holding the drawers were sanded and stained!

You can see in the upper right corner where we had to fill some missing veneer, but the way the wood filler absorbed the stain, it looks natural to the grain of the wood.

I love doing drawer liners with gift wrap! This one fit this piece perfectly because it was so old-school and didn’t distract from the original intent of this restoration, but just added a funky touch to it.

I sealed it with 4 coat of General Finishes wipe on poly waiting 24 hours between coats. I had to bring in this piece when applying poly because the humidity would prolong my dry times.

There are some pieces that are just not meant to be painted and this is one of them. I think this restoration came out beautifully! I only wish there was more pieces like this out there. This is going to make a perfect display table for my client and she gets to bring a little piece of family history back to life.