a nice repair

sweet little desk top in the shop for a tune up .. 

the tambour door on the right was in two pieces and of course,

would not come out of the case except if we removed the back of the cabinet.

                             like this .. lots of rusty and old different kinds of nails holding it on

the canvas backing was split on one of the five door parts

and when we removed it, there was some old newspaper too

for some reason ??

                                               hard to date it .. might be the twenties or 30s

we put a new piece of  canvas on the pieces with sandbags for weights 

because the door had a sections that was curved at the far end ..

aside from this proper family protrait we found inside,

there is an interesting thing happening with this cabinet ... 

an acquaintance called asking me to fix it a few weeks ago .. i definitely

know the person, but i didn't write anything down like the name or

number at the time since they said they would be dropping it off.  so, i went

off to golf last friday and there was this desk top sitting on a bench 

in the shop on saturday morning.

when the boys came in monday morning i asked whose it was and they said

someone's brother, with out of state plates, dropped it off and when trevor went 

to talk to him after he carried it into the shop, the gentleman was already driving away .. 

anyone recognize this?  i need some help here ..

a chippendale chair repair

a few photos here for my client of a chippendale chair that had a broken back splat.

the splat was broken and badly reglued at some point with some kind of flexible adhesive like substance.  after a little study, we determined that the best/ fastest/ most correct thing to do was to reinforce the broken spot with strips of matching mahogany.
click the photos to enlarge them..

due to the curve of the backsplat, we had to make an angled jig to hold the splat while we routed the slots for the reinforcing strips.  it seems very solid now that the glue has set.

we also had to excavate the piece of broken tenon from the chair frame itself, and then create a new stepped slip tenon ... sorry i missed that picture as it was a complex little deal due to the fact that the original tenon was flush with the back edge of the splat, and not something we
could replace/repair without the patch being visible ..

all done, with the touch up color and blending in ok ...

any other repair option would have required us to do some
scarfing and likely some carving on the original part.

all in all, a pretty successful repair that left the original backsplat complete
and ready for another 100 years.

update 8/15
we had such success with the first one, that we got to do another one

both tenons broken on this one

no choice but to have a visible patch

a little color touch up monday and it will be good to go ..

a fun and challenging repair

very presidential
 
well, we had a couple chuckles today .. we finished this repair and i was taking a quick record photo and caught jim in the 'dollar bill' pose.  lookin' good in there, don't ya think?  anyway, the orange lines in the photo denote all the places this piece was broken when we picked it up .. it is a family heirloom that was standing quietly in the owners' garage just after arrival, when the arm thing on the top of the automatic garage door just nicked the top and tipped it over on its face as it was closing.  small disaster .. all better now.  click the photos to enlarge them ..

it took a few clamps and a bit of fussy work to get everything lined back up and reglued.  it also required some imaginative clamping fixtures due to all the holes and rounded edges ... we got it though and it looks 'good as new' for an antique.  these things must have been really popular at one time cause there are about a million different pictures of em on google images.  check it out

seriously, a half million at least ..

looked great in it's home place

it even had a pair of sweet cast bronze, mirror image scallop shells for the base .. very cool ..

restoring a schwanbeck brothers display case

 i always enjoy a nice restoration project where you make something nice out of something not so nice.  this is an excellent case in point.  i didn't take a 'before' picture, but you can see from the one below that there was some pretty serious mouse damage on some of the rails of the case.  someone must have left a few pies in there when the store closed.  click the photos to enlarge them ..

 the case appears to be from the late 1800's and i give the schwanbeck brothers credit for some good design sense.  the case is entirely held together with screws, no glue, and so, was easy to completely disassemble.

 there was a little groove on the bottom of all four panels that engaged the top lip of the base.  once the panels were assembled on the base and screwed together on the corners, the top was put on like a hat.  screws were added from the top and bottom that went into the edges of the vertical panels and the case was then completely rigid. 

  pattented 1897 ...

the new guy, chris, did most of the work on this one .  sweet little case .. it's headed for the store with the new pizza oven ..

ebay find ... before and after

a little before and after here.  a client brought us the chair below.  it had a lovely mousey bouquet about it and some really funky red fabric, but the bones were good, and the hardware was complete and functional.  our friend isaiah at bespoke upholstery carefully disassembled it, saving the original fabric and frames for patterns .. the headrest is finished and will be reunited with its chair tomorrow.  click the photos to enlarge them ..

and i happen to have on hand a skin of maine chili pepper leather from universal leather company that the client thought was perfect for it.

we sanded the walnut veneer lightly and touched up the black painted edges.  we then gave it to our friend steve holman and he sprayed a little lacquer on it to freshen up the shine and get rid of the mouse odor.

  pretty righteous upholstery work by isaiah ...

 parts and patterns .. we made two new frames for the seat and back upholstery .. all the foam and burlap was replaced too.

 very cool upholstery foundation design.  obviously a factory chair. i tried to find one like it on google images but no luck ... info anyone?

 

 very nicely laminated frame.  i have no idea how they did that ... lots of pressure somehow.  it's kind of 'folded' into shape.

 the client asked us to reinforce the base so we added a 14 gauge plate 

between the swivel and the seat.  good to go ..
update 5/31

 

can't keep up

busy, busy, busy here the last couple of weeks.  so busy, i haven't been able to keep up with my blogging ... it's a GOOD problem, actually.  possibly a sign that things are finally, maybe, picking up a bit.  we have had some good new sales and a definite increase in requests for quotes on new projects.   let us all knock on wood here.  where to begin?  above, is the finished upper cabinet for the kitchen we have been working on.  that project is all installed now.  click the photos to enlarge them ...

 in the works now is another pool table to go in the room with the 12' claro walnut table we shipped back in july.  must be a big room !

there were two different designs floating around and so we made a scale model of both options, and the client chose the 'long x' in the top photo.  sam will be making a welded metal base for this one ...

the only problem was, not one, but TWO different sets of slates arrived from florida broken.  definitely a setback as we had to drive to albany to purchase a third from an old friend who restores pool tables, so we could finally get underway this week.

 will has about got the rails under control ...

and jim and i have about got the slate support frame under control.  it will have metal edges to match the metal base that sam is making ....

and sam is ready to weld tomorrow

besides the pool table, sam is extremely busy in the metal shop.  he installed two railings this week, a short one at a home in rupert, and then a more substantial one at the new chamber of commerce building in manchester ... photos of those later.  he also delivered the bench above to go with the 'x' table he made a few months back. (scroll down)

and back in the woodshop, will wrapped up this cherry trestle table Thursday, and it is in the finish room getting its final polishing.

it's a new, custom version of one of our early (1980's) 'shaker' inspired designs

.and we went to a wedding and celebratory bonfire last weekend ... it was a good un.  we burned 10 years of old bookkeeping in that one ...

hot an fast

and quite beautiful ...

and will found us an almost 'new in the box' number 80 on ebay ... you can't have too many of those around when there are four people in the shop ...

and, we've also got a pair of cherry tables going that will be mostly separated, but can be put together for large parties.

we had some beautiful matched figured cherry boards from our friends at irion lumber.

and laid them out and cut them ... going to be cool ...

and i loved this one from the new yorker ... the red sox fans are back to moaning now ... there's always next year ... what else ... oh, and we stripped and refinished a nice knoll-like teak veneer desk/table from the 60's or 70's? i think ... looks like new, thanks to our friend steve holman ... spray finisher extraordinaire ...

 all for now .. gotta get those quotes out ...

wait !  it's hard to believe, but i almost forgot the next big claro walnut table.  the slab for it is now in the garage, waiting for the pool table to get out of the shop.  we'll be working on that soon ... it will have a metal base like the table we recently sent to aspen.

really, now, all for now ...