Before

After

This carousel display stand from the 1990s made by Rocky Mountain Exchange collected dust in the garage for at least 10 years before I finally got it fixed up.

It had been damaged in shipping and needed a bit of work. Pretty much every mirror had fallen off, there was a chunk of support wood in the center column that had broken off, and the fabric top was absolutely filthy.

First step in restoring this was to take it completely apart.  There were lots of twisted brass rods, plastic pieces, corner trim, and mirrors that all needed cleaning.  Brass rods were cleaned with Twinkle Brass and Copper Cleaner, Plastic parts with dish soap and water.

To clean the fabric big top I soaked it with Spray-N-Wash for half hour or so then rinsed it thoroughly.  I had done this last so that I could put it on the repaired carouse base while it dried, just in case the fabric shrunk or anything - it was a very tight fit.

When the plastic rounding boards were dried I glued all the small mirrors back in using standard hot glue.

Then it was time to address the broken wood corner of the center column. First I glued the saved chunk back in using wood glue and let that dry.

I used a product called Plastic Wood-X by DAP. (Note: Plastic Wood by DAP is the same thing, the -X refers to the formula that starts out pink and changes color as it dries.) Plastic wood is a clay like material designed to fill in cracks, pits, and damage to wood. Once it dries it can be sanded, stained, or painted. I commonly use this to repair chips in my PJs carousel figurines that are going to be repainted.
To repair the missing corner of wood I put a screw in place to preserve the hole, then recreated the corner using the plastic wood, making sure to put on enough that it was slightly thicker than the existing wood surface. To make the sides into a straight corner tip, I used a stiff putty knife to press the clay flat after it had dried a few minutes. I removed the screw at that time as well, then left it to dry over night.

Once it was fully dry (Here you can see the color change from the -X formula) I sanded it flat and smooth with normal sand paper. I was a little careless doing the sides and scratched up my stand top a little bit, I recommend putting down a layer or two of painters tape to prevent that.

I decided to remove all the center column mirrors because the double sided tape was in really bad shape.

I used hot glue to put them all back in place, as well as to add the gold plastic corner cover strips.

Next I cleaned the base using Murphy soap oil and touched up the scratches with Tibet Almond Stick. I might refinish the base at some point and will probably repaint the black bottoms the figurine bases fit into.

Last step was to reassemble everything and stretch the still wet fabric big top back onto the top.

Final Results:

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