I’ve always wanted one of these desks and finally completed restoring the American roll top desk wreck I bought last July. It arrived in pieces, with at least a third of its glued joins open, the top badly warped, lock smashed and the tambour in pieces. The base had wet rot around the edges, a number of components had snapped, shattered or needed replacing such as a few draw components. Some screws had torn from their locations on the frame requiring new timber to be glued in to receive new clearance and pilot holes. Both tambour housing had snapped completely needing regluing and pegging with timber dowels. The tambour was dismantled and new canvas strips used to fasten them together. Six litres of chemical stripper were used to remove the hideous, discoloured lacquer and reveal the lovely oak components underneath. Its a nineteenth century office on castors completely dismantled, repaired, restored and rebuilt for another century or so.
