Shooting the War

BAMBOO FURNITURE
Bamboo furniture (hall stands, tables etc.) is rather rickety, and repairing it is rather a matter of careful gglucing and dowelling. When a piece of bamboo has been badly broken it will probably be a splintery split rather than a clean break. A wooden rod or dowel inserted through the Huddle of the bamboo will strengthen it so that you can tidy up the break and stick the splinters down again (see Fig. 4). The hollow bamboo is blocked at each ring and a hole will have to be bored right through so that the dowel can pass along. If you don’t possess a long enough bit, a red-hot iron or steel rod will burn a hole through, but be careful not to set die whole thing alight.
If the splintering is so bad that a lot of it has to be removal, tile piece can be built up again with Araldite suitably coloured, either yellow ochre or mottled brown. A good cleansing furniture polish will bring up the bamboo to a good shine, but epoxy resins don’t polish well.
want a permanent waterproof finish, clean off the bamboo thoroughly with a solvent to remove any old wax or polish; then wash and dry it and paint or spray the bamboo with polyurethane varnish or glaze such as konscal Hardglase or Translac.
BAROMETERS
If a barometer needs to be repaired, it is best to take it to an instrument repairer, but the cases themselves were often beautifully made, and quite worth using for some other purpose. The case of an aneroid barometer with the works removed might make a good frame for a small mirror, or, filled in with a suitable piece of wood, a base for any kind Of object, such as a ship model.
BASKET WORK, CANEWORK, WICKERWORK, RUSHWORK
All kinds of furniture incorporating these materials turn up in junk shops. They arc often in quite reasonable condition except for the grime of years ingrained in all the cracks and crevices, and for discolouration and fading.
Deal with the stuff in the garden on a warm sunny day by washing it very thoroughly with soap and warn water on cotton wool or a soft rag. Then dry it well and leave it in the sun for several hours, and the sunlight will bleach the basket work. Wickerwork chairs won’t hurt by being lightly scrubbed with cold salt water and will bleach quite a bit in the sun. Very dilute domestic bleach will whiten these materials without damage.
Stick together any pieces which have become unravelled with Evo-stik, and the following day, polish the chair with a silicone furniture polish or cream. To make a semipermanent protective skin apply a thin solution of acrylic resin such as Technovit, or a clear polyurethane glaze. These coatings will prevent dirt from getting at the wicker again, and will bind any pieces which tend to split or flake apart. The surface will be glossy, but because it is broken won’t have the over-bright mirror effect that these glazes give to plain wood.
To preserve wickerwork without glazing it, apply a paint of white beeswax dissolved in benzene (see Beeswax).
BATTERSEA ENAMELS
Genuine Battersea boxes, snuff boxes, trinket boxes etc. are rare, and are made of copper surfaced with opaque glass decorated by hand painting or by transfer painting. Any kind of small decorated box which turns up in a junk shop is liable to be labelled Battersea, and probably isn’t. As to cleaning and repairing such items, a wipe with a squeezed-out soap swab, a thorough drying, and then a rub over with Renaissance wax should do the trick. Don’t use solvents in case non-synthetic glues have been used.
BEADWORK
Beadwork was once quite a popular art, and 19th-century young ladies seemed to have spent a lot of time at it, making purses, book covers, tea cosies and even ambitious things like screens. A wash in warm soapy water is about the best way to clean it, but dry it immediately and carefully in case there are any metallic beads which might rust. Repairs are a matter of good needlework. Some of the beads won’t pass a needle; in this case use nylon thread which can be pushed through. To stiffen the tip of the piece of thread, dip it in a little melted candle grease and roll it between your fingers.

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