Scored a couple of vintage tikis, have some restoration questions.

A friend was kind enough to give me two vintage tikis that she's had for a while. She loved them, but thought I might be able to give them a better home. No idea of the history of them, just knows they're old, so I named them Statler & Waldorf after the two old guys in the balcony on the Muppet Show.

I used a little wood glue to help reinforce some of the loose bark around the bottom and was planning on hitting them with a couple of coats of water seal once the glue dries. Any issues with that? Any other tips to preserve them? Tall one in particular seems pretty fragile so I want to do whatever I can to help them stick around.

Keep them out of the weather and raised off the ground a bit. You can use a wood hardener but try it on a small area first to see how it looks. That’s all I can add

[ Edited by uncle trav on 2023-09-17 10:04:28 ]

Thank you. I'll definitely try that on the bottoms of them at least, should help.

I've used that wood hardener on punky sections of older wood I've carved. The resin is very thin so it soaks in easily, then cures and stabilizes the old wood. Works well as far as it goes.

I would suggest hitting it with multiple coats of boiled linseed oil to penetrate and rehydrate some of that super-dry surface wood. Once the oil cures it will form a thin barrier on the surface to make the wood a bit more water resistant. At their age and condition you'll still want to protect them from direct exposure to the elements but they should be fine in a sheltered location.

[ Edited by Prikli Pear on 2023-09-19 12:07:22 ]

Thanks for the tips! The wood hardener worked great on the bottoms of them, doesn't feel like balsa wood anymore, also picked up some spar urethane to protect the rest. My patio is pretty well protected, lots of shade and not too much direct sunlight. I keep my other tikis on paving stones to get them off the ground, just need to pick up a few more.