July 16, 2007:  The Restoration is Complete

With the assistance of several veteran trunk restoration professionals, I have completed the restoration of William Milas Allee's Civil War trunk.  All of the steps that I took were in strict compliance with the instructions I received from the professionals. 

The exterior of the trunk was prepared by removing all of the previous paint and hardware.  The hardware was then prepared for primer and paint.  The exterior oak was stained with Golden Oak stain and was hand rubbed with a Tongue Oil and Mineral Spirits mix as they did in the 19th century.  The exposed pine on top was stained with Dark Walnut stain and was also hand rubbed with a Tongue Oil and Mineral Spirits mixture.

The exterior tin was stripped, primed, then painted with industrial black enamel and a satin finish green enamel.  Since the original color of the trunk was not known, it was assumed that it was mostly black.  Black was the common color of trunks that were manufactured during the Civil War period.  Some trunks were all black and some had accent colors as options.  The green that I chose was picked to match the available colors of trunks that are professionally restored and some trunks that were manufactured with a similar green as the original accent color.

The interior was stripped of all paper since the wood beneath the paper had to be examined and treated.  The paper in this case was far from salvageable and had to be removed in any case.  The interior wood was stained and was left "as-is" to allow the wood to breath.  This process is done to help keep the wood from warping, cracking and decaying.  I did have the option to repaper the inside, but was advised, by the professionals, to stain unless I had a good need to use paper.  Apparently, repapering a trunk normally requires periodic maintenance and may allow the wood beneath to decay without being detected.  Also, it was not possible to find paper to match the original pattern.

During the restoration, I purchased another 150 year old trunk so I could replace one piece of hardware that was missing from the trunk.  I salvaged the hardware from the old, dilapidated trunk as well as about 75% of the wood.  I used the wood from the other trunk to fabricate a simple upper tray for Grandpa Billy's trunk.

Here are the final photos.