My partner has inherited a wooden ‘ship’ ornament that her grandfather made. Unfortunately, it has spent the last 30 years sitting in her parents ‘smoking room’ – and they smoke about 50 cigarettes a day each. So, yeah, it stinks and is encrusted in old, yellowed varnish.
My partner wants to have it on display but no way in its current state, so I’m wondering how I can go about cleaning it to remove the dirt, encrusted dust and 30 years’ worth of cigarette smoke.
It looks like it’s made of some kind of thin plywood, with (dirty, blackened) string for the rigging and either vellum or thick paper for the sales, with everything coated in varnish. Can anyone recommend a cleaning product or method of stripping it? I presume I’m going to have to take all the old varnish off.
I’m in the UK so I might not be able to get hold of particular brand names, but can probably find substitutes.
Consider replacing the sails and rigging. If it’s glued, you have to very careful with solvents to remove the varnish. I’d start by trying to sand the varnish off. But maybe with new rigging and sails it will look good enough.
I would start by trying to assess the item’s value, emotional or otherwise. If it is significant I’d spend some time trying to see if there are any professional art restorers in your area and what they might charge.
I used to have a friend who repaired/restored paintings and she said the most difficult part of her job was generally repairing damage to a family heirloom painting that was caused by someone using entirely inappropriate products to try and clean it. It’s sometimes very easy to turn what should be a fairly inexpensive cleaning into a pricy restoration job if you don’t know what you’re doing.
And even if you don’t wind up hiring a professional they can still inspect your item and perhaps give better advice than someone who hasn’t seen it can.