New England Federal Candlestand (1810-`1825) Part 2

Here are a few photos of the candlestand I have been working on. When I left off, I had completed all of the repairs to the table, including some major repairs to the pedestal where one leg is dovetailed in. The piece had been stained at one time and the stain proved to be hard to remove. In order to even the piece out, I stained it again. Most likely, this piece would have been stained originally anyway, and to remove all of the stain from the piece would mean a lot of invasive sanding. The other benefit of staining was that it toned up my repairs so well, that I decided to leave them natural and not try to hide them with touch-up powders. Here is a photo of the table after it was stained.
The next few photos show the table after the restoration was completed. the new finish is shellac based with a final coat of paste wax. The finish was applied using a French Polish method. Most of the scratches and dings were left in place to retain the piece's sense of authenticity and originality.

Anthony Buzak Mahogany End Table (ca. 2000)

Sometimes accidents even happen to a brand new piece of furniture. The table I recently completed was made circa 2000 by Anthony Buzak of Tonawanda, NY. Mr. Buzak builds tables of many shapes and sizes and has been in business as a professional woodworker since 1990. To view his work including this table, Click on the link below to his website:

http://www.anthonybuzak.com

The legs and apron of the end table I worked on are made of Mahogany. The top has a veneer of quilted Mahogany with an inlayed band of Ebony and Mahogany molding around the edges. The legs of the table have an elegant sweep outwards and the Quilted veneer on the top is dazzling.

Below are two photos of the table as it came to me.

Here is the artists stamp on the underside of the table.
The reason that I had this table to work on was that the table had accidentally been used as a bedside table and sweating water glasses severely damaged the finish on the top. here is a photo of the top with the water damage.
To remedy this, I removed the finish from the top and refinished it with shellac. The natural color of the wood was beautiful, so no stain was used. I also cleaned the base and gave it a couple of coats of shellac to bring it out. Afterwards, the entire table was coated with paste wax to help protect the finish. Below are several photos of the completed table.

New England Federal Candlestand (1810-`1825) Part 1

One of the pieces I am currently working on is a Candlestand made in Maine during the Federal Period sometime between 1810 and 1825. Before going on to explain the history of the piece, I feel that I should first write a few lines concerning the design of this piece.

The top is square and has a serpentine perimeter that is canted on the corners. The underside of the top is beveled to give the top an appearance of being thinner than it is. The top is fixed to the base with a tapered batten that is beveled and attached to the base with a wedged mortise joint. The column of the base is turned and the vasiform pedestal is beaded, this action being performed on the lathe during the original manufacture. the pedestal is connected to the legs using dovetail joinery. The legs are in a spider shape typical of the Federal period and terminate in a spade foot. With all of these details assembled, the result is a wonderful and unique table.

The piece was handed down through many generations to its current owner, and was reported to have been made in Maine. There is a very similar piece that is included in the Wintherthur collection and is listed as number 381 in the book "American Furniture: the Federal Period" ByCharles F. Montgomery. The piece in the book is given similar dates and under description notes that it was probably made in a rural area in New England. I would have to agree with this statement and the use of Maple and Birch (both northern domestic woods) would back this rural provenance up.

The piece was in really rough shape when it came into my shop. The main problem was that joinery for the legs had broken and been poorly repaired in the past. The top was also loose and the table had been stained red at some point. I do not think that this was done originally, despite the fact that many of these tables were stained red, because the under side of the table was not stained and showed evidence of being stripped at some previous time. Below is a photo of the underside of the table.

The top itself had some water damage, and many knife scratches that had gone deep into the surface. To try to remove would take a great deal of sanding and the scratches lend to the authenticity and history of the piece, so the customer and I decided to leave them and lightly sand the top. Here is a photo of the water damage to the top.
The wedged mortise and tenon joinery had loosened over time and someone had tried to repair this with a hot glue gun. This was an inappropriate glue to use and an ineffective repair. The photo below shows this.
The same glue was used to repair the bottom where the legs meet the pedestal. Missing portions of the joinery were replaced with wood putty, resulting in a messy and once again ineffective repair.The next three photos show this work.




After the finish had been removed, the next step was to dismantle the table and remove the prior repairs, so that I could see what I had to work with. the base of the pedestal was severly damaged and roughly 1/4 of it was missing. This needed to be patched with real wood to create a strong joint. The rest of the post shows this process. The next three photos show the damaged area in detail.


I Built a jig that would allow a router to move over the top of the broken area and remove some of the surface so that I could have a flat surface to glue my patch onto. This jig was made from scrap lumber and can be seen below with the pedestal clamped in place.
This detail photo shows the affected area before it was routed flat.
This photo shows the affected area after it was routed flat. I hit a few nails, but the blade seemed to be no worse for the wear! You can see that in the turned section to the right there is an additional area that needed to be repaired. That was dealt with the same way and can be seen in the following photo.

Now that I had a flat surface, I could clamp new wood to the base. I used reclaimed maple flooring to make my patches. They can be seen being glued in place below.
Here is a photo of the patches after they were glued in place and ready to carve.
The pedestal would have originally been turned on a lathe, but it would be very hard to center it again to return the patches, in addition to the fact that the batten on the top was not removable. Instead of turning the patch, I carved it by hand. Below is a photo of the patches carved down to a roughly cylindrical shape.
It is hard to see, but in the next photo the patch is scribed where the carved lines will be put in.
Here is the patch carved and ready for sanding
After the patch was carved, I needed to cut the dovetail mortise in the pedestal to receive the leg. to get the placement of this just right, I measured the diameter of the pedestal (9") and divided it by three (3"). This gave me the location to cut my dovetail. To make the process go a little faster. I used my router to create a flat shoulder for the leg and also to cut the dovetail mortise. I then fit it to the legs dovetail by hand and glued the leg in place.
Below is a detail photo of the patches before they were stained and with the legs put in place. The photo at the beginning of this post shows the repaired table standing on its own three feet! The next post will show the finish work and the completed table.

Modern Walnut Dresser (ca.1960) part 2

This is the second post concerning the Walnut dresser I have been working on. Here is a link to the first post:

http://johnmarkpower.blogspot.com/2011/05/modern-walnut-dresser-ca1960.html

After all of the repairs were made to the dresser, the next thing to do was to sand out all of the scratches and make any cosmetic repairs. Luckily, none of the scratches on the top were deep enough to cut through the veneer and they were all removed during the sanding process. Below is a photo of the dresser after it had been sanded and ready for staining.

This photo shows the top after the scratches were removed.
The customer had expressed a change in hardware from brass to a silver color. Luckily, the existing hardware was coated with a brass coloring that was removed through buffing. The result was a cleaned and polished aluminum hardware. Below is a photo of two handles. The one on the left has been cleaned.
This next photo shows the appliques for the feet before and after cleaning. the one on the bottom has been cleaned.
The only other piece of hardware to be dealt with was the brass stringing between the long drawers. This turned out to be made of plastic, and therefore could not be cleaned. Luckily, I was able to find the same material in a silver color.

The last step after staining the piece was to apply the finish. Below is a photo of me applying the finish.
Here is a photo of the piece during the finishing process. The color of the piece after staining was matched to a sample provided by the customer.
The last four photos show the completed restoration of the dresser.

Modern Walnut Dresser (ca.1960)

I am currently working on a long Walnut dresser that was made around 1960. The dresser has a label on the back, but no mention on it of who manufactured the piece. I can say by looking it over that it was made in America because of the use of Walnut veneers and Poplar as a secondary wood. The piece has aluminum pulls and feet appliques which were painted to look like brass. the strips between the drawers are made of plastic. There are also indications that the dresser once had a mirror, Although I think it looks quite nice without it.

Overall, the piece is in good condition. The finish has deteriorated quite a bit and has some significant scratching on the top. Also, the joinery on the legs has loosened up considerably. The customer also requested a darker color for the piece and a transition from the brass hardware to a silver color. the handles and feet will be brought back to a polished aluminum and the plastic trim pieces will be replaced with ones that are silver colored. Below is a photo of the dresser as it came to me.
The next two photos show some of the scratches on the top.



This photo shows the dresser after the removal of the old finish.
As mentioned above, the joinery was quite loose. I removed the leg assembly from the case and knocked it apart to scrape the old glue. I found that one of the legs had a previous repair that was poorly done. I removed the previous repair to the leg and fitted it with new dowels where the old ones had been removed. I then glued the leg assembly and re-attached it to the case. Below are a few photos of this process.

A photo of some loose joinery.
More loose joinery including some missing dowels.( they had been replaced by a drywall screw and a couple of nails!)
A photo of some broken joinery.
After the screw and nails were replaced with proper dowels, the whole assembly was re-attached to the case.
The next post will deal with the application of the new finish.