Thats a nice board.! The set is also very nice looking. Are the dark pieces Sheesham wood? Thanks for the heads up on old english, I use it on all my wood furniture.
Repairing scratches on a chess board.
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The pieces are shesham wood, nothing fancy.
Sep 1, 2014
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#4
I looked up the Old English Scratch Cover product and they make two of them. One for light woods and one for dark woods. Since chess boards have both light and dark woods do you need both products and do each sqaure by itself? Can you mix the two to come up with a product for "medium" wood tones? Just curious is all. Well a bit more than curious as both of my old Druke boards can use a conditioning. Do they make other products to recondition the wood and make it look showroom quality?
I only used the dark wood product. I believe the light wood cover should work on the light side squares, but I didn't have it on hand so I didn't bother. The Pledge furniture polish I used probably helped the light squares out a little bit.
Do not mix the two together. Instead, put some of the scratch cover on a cotton swab and rub it on a piece of junk wood. This will get the wetness out of it. Then begin rubbing it on the actual chess board til you get the darkness desired.
Also, Old English will not restore a beat chess board like mine to showroom quality. The after photo I posted is very flattering, but upon closer inspection one can easily see the damage is still there, especially if you hold it up to light at certain angles. Old English doesn't exactly "fix" the scratches, it just reduces their visibility to the point that they become far less bothersome. If a board has very few and light scratches...maybe? I think if you want to do a proper restoration you'll probably want to look into some of the real stains and sealers out there.
Sep 1, 2014
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#6
Thanks for the advice. Not into restoring like new. As long as I add some life into it I will be happy. I am going to Home Depot where they carry Old English and see what else looks interesting.
Scott's Liquid Gold is another wood cleaner/conditioner that should be readily available in hardware and home stores ... I've used it on a Drueke board with great results.
Sep 2, 2014
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#8
Johnsons paste wax is nice for this application too. It's cheap and It does not change the color of the wood. I do a bit of woodworking and use it all the time. Another nice product ive used is Restor-A-Shine.
http://www.howardproducts.com/prod-restor-a-shine.php
A general thread for tips and tricks.
I tried Old English scratch cover on this large board from Mexico (sorry no identical before photo). The results were pleasing, but it took a lot of careful buffing with cotton swabs and bathroom tissue to make sure the oil would not rub off on the bottoms of the pieces when playing. Eventually it wiped clean, and it was still much improved.
It also improved the slickness of the board,along with several treatments of pledge. Pieces move much more lightly now.
Be careful when applying the Old English, do it very lightly at first. It's easy to use too much and make the scratch darker than the surrounding square. With practice, you can get a good match. If you do end up going too dark a little mink oil applied to the area will lighten it up.
Before
After