I agree there, Nicola. And that goes for much other things you see out there where people are "restoring" items. Generally it's more a matter of making the objects shiny and repainted. Often with a pretty destroying technique involving sand blasting, polishing with abrasive, etc. The things they are dealing with may often come out nice in appearence, but it's not a restoration.
I noticed that part of the burner was missing and that he did not service the NRV., but the stove looked much better after his work than it did at the start and he did patch up the solder joint on one of the legs, methods and the amount of "restoration" are in my opinion, up to the individual collector.
Absolutely! It's up to everyone to do whatever they want with their collection. No argument there. I just don't think they should call it a restoration when it's mainly about polishing and painting. And often destroing, even if perhaps not so much in this particular case. Refurbishing, perhaps?
Yes, there are some rough methods used in some of those so called restoration videos on YT., but the link below shows a good restoration video, that's my opinion anyway.
How would one define restoration in this context? Maybe restoring just the 'niceness' of the appearance and its basic functionalities? In my opinion on such items, it could be a mammoth task of restoring it back to the condition it was in when new from the factory or its box. For anything that is severely corroded with heavy loss of material over the years, restoration to its original form is probably next to impossible.
Maybe I have been misunderstood. I see many mistakes (brass should never be sandblasted, the leg repair didn’t need any additional solder and most of stoves present a little leg detaching, especially in this case a simple reflow was enough, surely not a pound of solder). Anyway, apart these aspects, I have enjoyed many of his restorations, to remember the Enders stove. What really disappoints me is the functionality aspect, that has been completely ignored. As @MYN says, hard to bring back to new in the appearance, but surely these stoves can burn like new also if highly corroded or battered. A lot of time wasted to polish like crazy the pump rod to have a stove that doesn’t burn well at all, so this doesn’t make any sense to me. Like restoring an old sport car just by painting it and washing the engine…
@JEFF JOHNSON surely we always share our opinions in the respect of others opinions, just debating Again, also for the Juwel 34 I see a nice paint job, but a poor flame (last seconds show a poor red flame). I think that with a sandblaster we could be all good at preparing and repainting these items or at least I don’t see any very hard skill to acquire to achieve similar results. Important is to focus and put effort and time to understand how the restored item should work and what can be done, working on the smaller details, to bring back the functionality at the same level of the appearance. Nicola
Social media are giving big audience to people and this (skilled) guy made a great job creating this channel and very well made contents. But, once the success is achieved, with a big audience of people watching you and looking at you maybe as a reference to approach a restoration, the content creator should start to evolve and try to improve himself to show the most correct ways to restore each item, show the effort to respect the objects and to really bring back them to life in the correct way. It’s a responsibility. In these videos I see wrong methods and a simplistic approach that as goal have only the achievement of the wow factor from people that maybe aren't much into the restoration world. A video after another just for the views, this is the risk in the long term. I hope my criticism is taken in the right way, I don’t like to destroy or judge others people work, at all. Nicola
And to better explain myself, maybe from today, some people will start to sandblast their rare stoves thinking that that’s the correct way because they’ve seen the procedure on “restoration channel”. Every time an influencer or content creator creates a new content, should always remember that he has a big audience and he has the responsibility to drive the most correct information as possible. Nicola
To qualify as 'proper' restoration of such items, one of the most important thing to ensure is to prevent as much as possible, further loss of structural materials during the process. This requires patience, time and probably a lot of elbow grease. However, to the influencer or the YouTuber, he/she might think that won't appear cool or attractive enough to the audience. The speed and efficiency of a sandblaster, abrasive mill and other power tools with abrasive pads are certainly amazing to watch. Undoubtedly, the actions seem to excite and attract a bigger crowd. Which of the above methods would gain him/her more followers and subscribers?
As I stated in a previous post, it's up to each individual how they treat their possessions. I would not sandblast brass or copper, but I do not see anything wrong with sand blasting a steel tank to prepare it for repainting. I always restore each of my pressure lamps etc., to working order if possible. However, if the tank on a common lamp is stress cracked, then I strip that lamp for parts and then scrap the tank, if a rare lamp has a stress cracked tank then I keep it as a shelf queen. I don't bother trying to repair stress cracked tanks because even if the crack can be repaired, the metal is fatigued and it often cracks somewhere else. Other collectors have different approaches to restoration and that's as it should be, skol fae Jeff.
@JEFF JOHNSON sure Jeff, we all have our methods, and as I said nothing wrong with sandblasting rusted metal and repaint it. No problem also sandblasting brass if we secretly do that at home on our own stuff. We don’t run a “restoration channel” but as well I don’t expect to see a sandblasted brass by “mr patina”. Again, running a channel, with a big audience, involves also a certain responsibility in the choice of the delivered contents. If I open a channel tomorrow “chainsaw master” I would be responsible about the information I will transfer to my audience, selling myself as a pro. If I show potentially dangerous operations to do with a chainsaw, I would be responsible if that information will hurt someone. An exaggeration to explain my point. Nicola
@JEFF JOHNSON yes, that’s a good idea. Hopefully my opinion will be taken in a constructive way and not as a plain criticism Nicola
