Old Wooden Clocks - How to Clean the Wood?

[Julles]

I just bought (another!) old mantle clock, this time my first electric model.

The wood is really dirty, even grimy, as if it's been sitting in someone's garage for a coupla decades.  I can actually run a fingernail along the top and come up with gunk.

The metal ring around the glass front is also covered with the grime.

Any ideas on how to clean this, without damaging the wood or varnish?  I plan to use Howard's wood restorer once I get the clock clean. 

[Esther]

Murphy's Oil Soap is made for cleaning wood. My stepson just used Liquid Gold on an old armoire he just bought from a garage sale. Google "cleaning antique furniture". I did and there was a great article on the Utah State University Extension website that had a lot of information about different wood finish problems and how to fix them.  http://extension.usu.edu/files/publications/publication/FL-HI-500.pdf

[karen J]

Esther, WOW. Thank you for that terrific link. Kevin and I remember a TV show by "The Furniture Guys" in which they explained the different finishes and the solvents to use for each one. That was years ago and we've since forgotten that important information. It's all there in your USU link. 

It is important to note that Kevin refinishes radios, and that the refinishing process usually improves the value of the radio. That's not the case with most furniture, though. Tinkering around with the finish can significantly lower the value, especially if it's an antique. So be careful! 

[Julles]

Thanks.  I don't want to refinish it - just to get decade's worth of gunk off without hurting the original finish. 

Yeah - you should see the people's faces on the Antiques Road Show when the appraiser tells them they have a $100,000 piece of 1770's furniture ... EXCEPT for when Uncle Bob went and stripped it and refinished it.  Now it's worth, like, about $30.

[karen J]

Julles, we have painful memories of that sort of thing. We have an old (1860) French armoire that was "smuggled" into the USA by ancestors during the war, that was worth a small fortune. My MIL "refinished" it and it lost 80% of it's value.
However, financial value isn't everything. We really do enjoy the beauty of the piece, even though it was refinished. I love the wood and how pretty it looks refinished with boiled linseed oil. It probably looked a lot worse covered in black grime. We'll take it either way... but it really looks wonderful with the refinishing  I guess it's about money, beauty, or true conservation. True conservation is a labor of love.

The site that Esther posted should get you going, it's a great learning site.