Refinish an Old Wooden Sewing Case

I recently restored this lovely old Necchi Supernova sewing machine, but couldn't bring myself to put it back into its ratty old case.

The case was beat up and looking pretty sad, but I could see it had some potential.

These are the steps of how I stripped it down, fixed it up, and refinished it into something a little more suitable for the machine that was going into it.

You may not have an old wooden sewing case that needs to be refinished, but perhaps there are some general ideas here that will help you with a project down the road.

Thanks for taking a look.

Step 1: Original Case

This is the way the case looked when I got it. It wasn't in the worst shape I've ever seen, but it had clearly been dragged around for 50 years.

Step 2: Break It Down

I began by disassembling the case into its various parts.

All the hardware was removed. The side clasps were riveted in place, so these had to be drilled out.

Step 3: Strip Off Paper Finish

I made a bath of sorts out of a frame of scrap lumber with a plastic garbage bag draped over it.

I scoured the paper surface with a wallpaper removal tool and let the case soak in a solution of wallpaper remover.

The paper covering peeled off fairly well, although some sections required a little more effort.

Step 4: Sand

Once the pieces of the case were all dry, they were sanded smooth by hand with 220 grit sandpaper.

Step 5: Repair

There were several cracks, voids, and other areas that needed to be patched or repaired.

A lot of these blemishes were just due to the nature of the original design; there was no need for perfection since all the bare wood was to be covered anyway.

The inside portion of the case that supports the sewing machine needed a little glue and clamping to tighten things back up.

Step 6: More Repair

The holes where the handle had been attached were worn and enlarged from years of use.

The holes where the side clasp rivets had been drilled out were also worn and fairly chewed up.

All of these holes were patched with epoxy putty. The handle holes got a little bit of wood filler as well.

Step 7: Add Name to Case in Lighter Stain

This was a little experiment in two-toned wood staining.

I wondered if I could add the Necchi name to the side of the case in a light wood stain, and then add a darker stain all around it.

I began by tracing a stencil onto the wood surface, and then used a sharp hobby knife to cut through all the lines made with a stencil to a depth of about 1/16" into the wood. I then carefully brushed a light stain into the letter areas, and blotted off the excess stain with a rag. This was done on both sides of the case.

My thought was that if the wood fibers were cut along the desired outline, the darker stain would be less likely to bleed into the lighter area. This was true, and it worked out great.

However there were other issues, which I explain in the next step.

Step 8: Add Darker Stain

I added darker stain around the letters with a small artist brush, but didnot blot awaythe excess stain for fear of getting dark stain smeared onto the light letters. (Oops! See below.) I then proceeded to stain the remainder of each side of the case when these detailed areas were done.

Because I didn't blot the excess stain away around the letters, but rather just let it soak in, some of these areas are stained darker and don't match the rest of the case very well. It's not terrible and I can live with it, but it is quite noticeable--to me at least.

If I were to do something like this again (intricate two-toned staining), I would take a slightly different approach.

After staining the lighter areas, I would very precisely seal them with a couple coats of shellac before moving on to staining the darker areas. This way I could just throw down the dark stain in large passes like normal, wipe up the excess and move along. The dark stain wouldn't penetrate the shellacked areas, and the results would be more uniform. Seems like an easy solution after the fact....

Live and learn!

Step 9: Pinstripes

On the outside of the case there were little grooves cut along the left and right sides that originally held some decorative cording.

Prior to staining the case, I filled these grooves with wood filler. After staining, I masked off and painted gold pinstripes over the top to hide the filled grooves.

To keep the gold paint from bleeding under the masking tape and to leave nice crisp lines, I first painted the pinstripes with clear shellac to seal the edge of the tape. I then painted the stripes gold and removed the tape.

This is a great trick for painting clean lines, and is covered excellently right here.

Step 10: Finishing

The entire case was coated with three coats of shellac, with a light sanding with super fine steel wool after each coat.

After the final sanding, the case was rubbed with paste wax and buffed clean.

Step 11: New Handle

I made a wooden insert for the handle to replace the crusty old plastic one, and finished it in the same manner as the case.

Step 12: Reassemble

Everything was then reassembled with the original hardware. The side clasps were fastened with gold screws into holes pre-drilled into the areas I patched earlier on with the epoxy putty.

That's it for the case. Much better then it was!

Step 13: Bonus! Small Storage Box

I also made a small storage box out of some scrap material to go along with the sewing case. This was glued and nailed together, and finished to match the case.