Eastlake Chair (part 2)

Here is a short entry. I wanted to post a photo of the Eastlake chair I have been working on with the restored finish. I will post one more photo with the Upholstery in place.

Walnut Chest of Drawers with Marquetry Inlay

A customer contacted me concerning several pieces that had water damage. One is a chest of drawers with Walnut veneer. The front of the chest has a beautiful marquetry inlay of a bouquet of flowers. For more on the art of marquetry here is a link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marquetry

While the chest of drawers is fairly modern, the veneers used in this piece are quite nice. The piece sustained damage to its top due to falling plaster and damage to the drawer fronts due to water spray. The finish used on this piece is a factory sprayed laquer which is not a restorable finish. The chest originally had the carved sections painted with a gold paint, but since we had to remove the finish from the rest of the piece, we nemoved the gold paint as well. I stained the carved areas, which were naturally much lighter then the veneers, to match using aniline dye stains. After all repairs were done (including reattaching a loose top) I began the finishing process. I will post pictures of the completed chest after I deliver the piece.


The chest before refinishing
The Chest with its finish removed

Tightening of the joinery of the case
Replacing a missing piece of trim on the drawer front

Masking the trim on the drawer fronts for staining


The piece during the application of the finish

Gluing the Walnut Eastlake Chair

I received a Walnut chair designed in the Eastlake Style. for a brief description of the Eastlake Movement in the United States here is a link to wikipedia's entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastlake_style

For info on the Charles Eastlake, the inspiration of this movement:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Eastlake

The chair I received had gotten some water damage to the finish and the fabric. Whenever a chair comes in for reupholstering I take the opportunity to check the joinery and glue the chair if necessary. In this case, the last upholsterer had glued the joinery with a hot glue gun which does not hold up for long. As a result, every joint in the chair had come unglued. This post covers the removal of the upholstery and the gluing of the chair. As I move on to the finishing process and the recovering of the chair I will post separate entries.

The Chair as it came to me.

The chair with the upholstery removed.
The chair completly dissassembled with all upholstery staples removed!

After all of the joints have been cleaned of the old glue the chair is glued.

Fixing Runners for a walnut dining room table

I recieved a walnut dining room table recently with mechanical problems. the first problem was that the runners had been damaged and as a result did not function properly. Below are photos of the damaged runner, the damaged area removed and the patching of the runner with new wood. After the patches are glued then I will recreate the track that allows the runners to open and close.The runner was damaged on both ends but since I did the same procedure to each end I only included photos for one end.( I don't know why but the last photo got flipped, Sorry!)

Patching a broken foot (part 2)

This entry has a first part which is several entries ago. After gluing the patches in place the next step was to remove the excess wood and sand the patches until they were smooth and flush with the old wood. The last step was to stain and touch-up the patches and add finish to them. Below are some photos of the process.