j-b weld it

break out the j-b weld .... as they say on the website ... "don't scrap it, j-b weld it", and we did. on tuesday morning, an electrician for one of our clients brought this elaborate wall sconce to us with one of the arms separated from its little ball joint (arrow #1).. it had a plastic coated wire in the pipe so we couldn't weld it normally, even if we could have figured out what kind of metal it was. probably some kind of cast brass. the thin wall curved pipe was originally threaded with fine threads into the little brass ball, but, after, (rumor has it), taking a hit from an indoor football throw, it looked pretty hopeless. click the photos to enlarge them ..

sam instructed us in the fine art of 'jb welding' and we set it up on the bench in the finish room and had at it. the key, according to sam, is to mix up the 'cold weld epoxy', figure out how to put some light pressure on the immobilized pieces and then DON'T TOUCH IT !! for 36 hours or so. it says four to six hours on the package, but hey, what's your hurry? in the top photo above, you can see that we cobbed up some rubber bands, a couple of props to get it on the right angle and then left it until about 11:30 this morning. will touched up the gold paint around 8:00 this morning, and by the time that was dry, it was off to its old home wall ... i'm pretty sure it will be fine ... next time you have some brolen metal parts that won't be subject to torque, stress, or flying footballs, give it a try ... works for us ...

cute little thing

yesterday i fixed a really cute mini bureau for a friend and client ... she's had it for a while and has always wondered if it was a sample or a kid's piece ... who knows ... whatever it is, (i suspect it could possibly be a journeyman project) (scroll down) it's a cool and friendly object ...
closed.. 18.5 high x 21.5 long x 11" deep ... 10 drawers on the top behind the fall flap and 3 regulars in the lower case.
aside from refinishing the top and fall flap, and replacing the bras around the keyhole, the lock was the most troublesome thing .. it was in one of the drawers and had been for 'quite a while' ... mainly, because there was no wood left to attach it to ...
first i routed the recess level, then added some 'prefitted' new mahogany support pieces glued to the freshly routed surfaces ...
after and overnight dry, i remounted the lock to the new blocks with really small (1/2 x 3) brass screws ... can't wait to get my good camera back from the repair place ...
all in, all done ... good to go ... all the scalloped pieces on the top row have drawers attached

a clock case repair

we fixed another clock this week. there was a handwritten note pasted inside the case that said it was "old in 1854 when _________ gave it to my grandfather." i'm waiting to hear from the british clockmaker, who is repairing the works as to his best guess on the date and geographic origin. it's american, with a cherry case with mahogany details, and appears, with the exception of the lock, pretty original. like the last one we fixed in the spring, the weight had fallen and taken the floor with it ... all better now. click the photos to enlarge them ...
we started with the easy stuff, some missing moldings here and there. a brainstorm i had was to do the first couple coats of dye and shellac before gluing them in, which simplified the blending of the finish later on.
this was the most troublesome aspect of this project. it's the front right leg, and it had been nailed through the glue block in several directions. it twisted off easily in my hand, the nails, not so easily. eventually, i worked them out through the hole and repaired the surrounding area and drilled a new, slightly larger hole. i had to make a stacked jig to keep the little foot vertical while i drilled the new hole for the new tenon, which was simple once i worked through the concept phase of it.
viola ...
new bottom from recycled chestnut ...
out the door ... pics with the works when they arrive later this week i think ...

The Chest

Over the past five years or so, we taken on more repairs and restoration of worthy antiques for the folks in our area .... It's great work on a number of levels: it's a break from the routine; it gives us a chance to be heroes by saving or polishing items of, in some cases, extreme sentimental value; it's a quick project rather than something you work on for days or weeks ; and the work is often challenging and thought provoking. We've learned to try to 'do no harm' by doing as little as possible to get things back in shape. Over the last year and a half we have had the good fortune to work with a couple who suffered a pretty serious fire and have learned many techniques for cleaning smoke damaged furniture . The star of this post I have written about before. The client had it for a long time, having chosen it when his late grandmother's possessions were divied up.
Here's the only shot of it I have pre-cleaning ...
Here I'm about to start on the touch up ... We talked to about a million people about this piece ... It's old; as far as we could tell, no one has ever messed with the paintings; it's important to the client ... he got it from his grandmother and, though it's hard to photograph, in person you can clearly see his name (Chinn) and the date 1706, a year his ancestor married and built a large home in Virginia that still stands today. So, is it possible this chest has passed down on the male side of his family for over 300 years???? The client was floored when we found this. One dealer I spoke with felt maybe it was not quite that old....Others were not so sure ... Regardless, it was now an important family piece for sure ...
I have lightened the photo and changed the contrast, but here it is.... there are other writings on two of the other panels, but they are not as easy to translate.
Another view of it ...
After testing a small area of the paint (for about the third or fourth time), with a white paper towel and denatured alcohol, we rub coated the first panel with 'sealcoat', a dewaxed shellac.
That provided a barrier coat and I built and blended on top of that with three colors of latex paint on the same brush at the same time ... I often use this technique when recoloring antique finishes ...
dab it on ... smush it around and redab ... if you go too far, which I did a couple of times on this project, the barrier shellac coat allows you to 'erase' your mistakes by rubbing with alcohol to go back to the beginning ... recoat over the color when you're happy ..
I guess 'blot' is the right word. You kind of pounce it with a smushed up paper towel until it looks right.
The first end panel retouched ... note the difference between the side base and the front ...
Here the front is retouched on the right, but untouched on the left ...
The 'Chinn' end ..
The top looked like it might be a challenge, but we cruised through it to wrap it up ... When I delivered it yesterday, the client said it now looked better than it did before the fire, a high compliment for sure ...

For more information on our work repairing and restoring worthy antiques, see this link here... Or for two of our finest saves ... this link ...

A Tall Case Clock Restoration

We had a nice tall case clock repair come through the shop recently ... Looks to be (except for the missing brass moldings) pretty much original ... There was some loose stuff that we glued and tacked back on and there are a couple of painted wood/brass molding replacements that we left in place ... We weren't after an all out restoration but when we finished, it looked ran and looked just fine ... Click the pictures to enlarge them ....
all together in the shop ...
one of the missing brass moldings, which Trevor duplicated in short order using the cnc ..
After
Will did most of the work on the case and he also replaced a couple simpler missing brass pieces ...
There was no key and the case was locked ... With a little flashlight work and some trial and error, Sam not only got the lock to open, but made us a new key which worked better after we added the wood shim inside the lock ...
Trevor had to unstring and rewind both cables before we hung the weights to get the cable to track right, but as soon as he did, things started to tick tock and gong way .... We hung the pendulum onsite, set the date, time and phase of the moon and tomorrow we'll go back and check and adjust before installing the bonnet ... An interesting project ....
All in, all done ... ticking away and keeping great time .... It seems that it's older than I first thought. My client sent me a link and some information below, on the maker, whose name is inscribed on the dial ...

A late 17th or early 18th century bracket or table clock signed "Markwick, London". The Markwick family is known as one of the earliest of London’s clockmakers, with James Markwick being succeeded by James, presumably his son. The second James Markwick ascended into the Clockmakers Company of London in 1692, becoming a master in 1720, and it was he who sometimes signed his work as simply ”Markwick” http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/7421270.

A Quick Windsor Repair

We do this repair pretty often ... Broken bow .... We set it up so we can rout accurately with a small laminate trimmer, first the fromt usually, then the back, which is a little more complicated. we glue the repair pieces on as we rout. This bow was hickory and we had some ... Rout, glue, rout, glue, file trim, sand, color ... Will did this one and it went by so fast I didn't even get pictures of the intermediate steps... The chair was a worthy example though and it looked good when it was done ...
Broken
Front view finished ... A good save ..
Repair zones ... one side is usually longer than the other to (hopefully) eliminate new weak spots
Close up .... can't hardly tell ...

A Few Repairs

All in , all done .... miracle recovery .... descriptive post below
We finished a couple of interesting repairs last week and I was sending photos to clients so I thought I would post them here too ... The bureau above is one of the last pieces of furniture we have to restore that was damaged in the fire I have occasionally written about. I thought it was a goner as it took several days in the sun to even get it open, and when we finally did, it really didn't look too promising ... Looks can be deceiving though and by the time Jim stripped the smoked shellac and sanded the interior and resealed it, I was starting to be just a little more optimistic. Click the photos to enlarge them ...
Here, Jim has stripped off the toasted shellac and sanded the interior, which he is now coating with a seal coat of shellac and wax to get rid of the smoke odor.
There were then some repair necessary to the face that that you can see in the first photo above ...
I chipped off what was left of the round corners and replaced them with new veneers. The masking tape was a good trick. It allowed me to bend the veneers cold without the pieces breaking or separating, kind of like a paper backed veneer would be, only thicker...
I taped them in place with the repair man's friend, 3M 2040 masking tape, a stretchy but strong and sticky clamp..
The stripped and sanded drawers ... What's up with that top one? ..
We applied a thin coat of aniline dye, recoating some elements a couple of times to balance the color, and then shellaced with a wash coat of diluted fresh amber shellac. We'll build slowly in thin coats from here until we reach the desired shine, which will not be too terribly shiny ... The hardware has been cleaned and 'reantiqued' and is ready to go back on when the finish is complete ... I think it will look like a million bucks when it's done ...
Another fire victim in the before stage ....
In the 'almost finished' stage. The brass was polished and then reantiqued and the shellac was built slowly as mentioned above ... We finished the top with a coat of black patinating wax which was perfect for the job .... The Revere bowl was totally black and looked almost hopeless before Jim got to work on it ...

This is another repair that came through recently from Hildene, Robert Todd Lincoln's home, in Manchester, Vermont. We had a huge windstorm a couple of weeks ago, which blew open the French doors at the house and knocked the table across the room
Before ...
After