Cedar Lawn: Late Classical Mahogany Game Table (ca. 1830)

Shortly Before Thanksgiving, I completed the restoration of several pieces for a historic home in Jefferson County, West Virginia called Cedar Lawn. All post that I write concerning the furniture restored for this estate will have "Cedar Lawn" written in the title. Cedar Lawn was built in 1825 for John Thornton Augustine Washington, the grand nephew of George Washington. Here are two links to Wikipedia, one about Cedar Lawn and the other about John Washington.

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

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

The current owners of the house have recently completed the restoration of the home, of which restoring the furniture was a part. Here is a link to the website that chronicles the restoration of the property:

http://cedarlawnrestoration.com/

I will be writing several posts about the fantastic furniture that I had the pleassure of working on. While the provenance of the pieces is hard to trace and none can be proven to be original to the estate, many of the pieces dated to the general time period of the house's construction and were in keeping with the architectural style of the house.

the first piece I will be writing about is a Late Classical, or American Empire game table. I have to say that in all of my time working on furniture that this style of game table is the most appealing to me and of all of the Late Classical game tables that I have worked on, that this is one of the nicest examples.

This style of furniture is often referred to as "Pillar and Scroll" furniture and one can see why when you look at this piece. The column or "pillar" sits atop a base which terminates in a scroll foot, in this case with applied turned volute appliques. The bottom of the pillar is surrounded by a well carved wreath. As we move up the table the apron is shaped in a well proportioned ogee profile and the top is veneered with a beautiful piece of crotch Mahogany. When the table is opened the top surfaces are book matched and are made from ribbon Mahogany veneer. All of the veneers and and solid carved parts on this table were made from tight grained Cuban Mahogany. The secondary wood used in this piece was pine, possibly pointing toward northern manufacture. For a look at an earlier post I wrote on Pillar and Scroll furniture and its history you can follow this link:

http://johnmarkpower.blogspot.com/2010/01/cabinet-makers-assistant-pillar-and.html

The table had lots of loose veneer and a broken foot. It also had a lot of separation on the finish so  I decided to remove the finish, make the repairs, and refinish the table with a French Polish. These first few photos show the table in the condition that it came to my shop. The close up photos show some of the separation of the old finish.

This photo shows some of the veneer loss on the base.

After the finish was removed, I set about repairing the table. A large section of the apron was loose and needed to be glued in place.

Some additional damage was that one of the tables feet had broken off of the table and had been poorly repaired in the past. These photos show the old repair undone and the foot separated from the base.

In this next photo, The apron is being glued back in place. The next two photos show some creative clamping on the foot to glue it back in place.

After those repairs were made, loose veneer and patches were glued in place as seen in the photo below.

There was one veneer bubble that needed to be glued down on the top. This photo shows that work being done.

The next two photos show the tops and base during the refinishing process.

The following series of photos shows the restoration completed. The photos show the top open and closed and also the table from a few different angles.

Late Federal Mahogany Card Table (ca.1825) Part 3: The Completed Table

Below are some photos of the Federal card table I have been working on completed. The touch up on the top where the cracks were turned out really nice! This was an exquisite piece of furniture and the Cuban mahogany veneer really jumps out now. I am also impressed with the fine hand carved legs. The first few photos show the table with the top folded over and the last few photos show the table with the top open for card playing.

Late Federal Mahogany Card Table (ca.1825) Part 2: More Repairs and Veneer Replacement

This is the second post concerning the restoration of a Federal card table. The first part can be seen in the preceding post.

Having gone through the major repairs, it was time to get into the finer repairs and stabilizing the veneer. Unfortunately, some veneer, notably the edging, was lost. To replace this I used real Cuban Mahogany veneers and later stained them to match the old veneer. But first, I left off the last post with the installation of three butterfly patches in the underside of one of the game table surfaces. Here is a photo of those after they had been pared down flush with the surface and stained. Finish was later applied to this surface.
An earlier patch near one of the knife hinges used to hold the tops together was partially missing. The next two photos show the new patch being installed.

As you can see in the photos below, every top surface had a crack in it. The cracks were caused by the shrinkage of the pine boards that make up the substrate for the table surface. The veneers were torn apart by this movement leaving a 1/8 inch gap in the surfaces that ran almost the entire length of the surfaces. The repair for this kind of a break is to fill the gap with a long tapered wedge which is inserted with glue. Once the glue sets, the wedge is pared down flush with the surface. The next few photos show this procedure. One note, the blue tape seen on the wood are all the spots with loose veneer. these are found by tapping on the surface. each was individually glued down.

Here is a photo of the crack in one of the top surfaces.
this photo shows the wedges taped into place.
Another crack in a top.
The second top wedged.
Here is the third surface wedged.
As I stated above, there was a lot of the edge veneer that was missing and had to be replaced. This is done by cleaning the substrate of old glue and then adhering the new veneer to the substrate using hide glue. The veneer is held in place by lots of thin slices of tape. The gaps between the tape are to allow air to reach the glue.

Below is a photo of the side edge of one of the top surfaces. The old glue has been cleaned off of the pine board beneath.
This next photo shows the veneer being glued in place.
In the next few photos, the old veneer is being glued down and the edge veneer is being glued into place. The blue tape indicates where the veneer was loose or missing.



Like the tops, the base also had veneer damage which needed to be addressed. It was mostly along the sides and the canted corners of the apron. Below is a photo of the veneer being glued down.
After the glue had set on everything, the excess glue was removed with hot water and all of the patches were carved flush. The next step was to sand everything to get all of the veneer and patches smooth. After the sanding was completed I commenced with the application of the finish. No stain was necessary for this piece except for a few light areas and patches. Below are a some photos showing the tops and the base with a couple of coats on them. The patches were later touched-up.



I will write one last post which shows the table completed.

Late Federal Mahogany Card Table (ca.1825) Part 1: The Repairs

Recently I have been working on a Mahogany veneered card table. After looking over the piece and comparing it to other pieces I believe it to be American and dating to around 1825. There were no easy indicators to use in the identification of the country of origin, so I needed to dig a little deeper. The veneer and the legs for the card table are made from Cuban mahogany. The secondary wood is a hard pine with the exception of the cross piece which holds the top to the base. This, I believe is White Pine which grows in the Eastern U.S. The presence of this piece of wood points towards construction in a north eastern state. In addition, the over all style of the piece has an American feel (English game tables from this time looked to be more ornate). The legs of the piece are Sheraton in style and have a spiral turned decoration. The apron and the top are veneered in mahogany and the use of undecorated flat surfaces and exquisite crotch veneers points towards the American Empire period in furniture. It could be said that this piece is a transitional piece from the Federal into the American Empire period.

The game table came to me with several problems. This post will concern the major repairs to the piece. Separate posts will deal with veneer replacement and the finishing process. Below are two photos of the table as it came to me:


The major problems included significant veneer loss, two very broken legs, loose joinery and cracked and warped top surfaces. I employed a variety of techniques to repair this piece. While inspecting the piece, I realized that the finish on the piece was not an original finish and that repair work had been completed at sometime in the past. With this knowledge, I decided to remove the existing finish in order to make all of the repairs. The result will be an appropriate finish and overall a much better looking piece.

The first step was to repair the legs. Below is a photo of the broken joinery on two of the four legs. The pieces that broke off were missing and so I needed to patch the missing portions with new wood. Below is a photo of the two legs and the broken joinery.
I used the same process to repair both legs, so I will detail the repair of one. To give myself something to glue to I first needed a flat area to apply the patch. This was done by using a router and a simple jig I built to create the flat surface. Because less wood was missing from the top of the turned section, I made the patch in two steps which also increased the surface area for gluing. Below is a photo of the leg in the jig, ready to be flattened.
This photo shows the same leg after the area to be patched was flattened.
This photo shows the patch being glued in place. The photo was taken at a side angle showing the stepped shape of the patch. Cuban Mahogany is no longer commercially available, so I use a very tight grained Honduran Mahogany. I do have Cuban Mahogany veneer which I will use for the veneer patches.
Here is a photo of the patch from the front after the clamps were removed.
This photo shows the patch after the turned section had been hand carved away and lines drawn out for the molding to be shaped. Originally this was done on a lathe, but it is very difficult to re-mount a leg and have it centered, so I carved the molding by hand.
Here is a photo of the molding carved. It will be further refined after the legs are glued in place. The last step in the repair of the legs was to recreate the mortises for the joinery.
This photo shows one of the legs that was cracked being glued back together.
Most of the joinery on the base was lose, so I knocked it apart to clean the old glue. I used hide glue to glue the base, which was the glue originally used. Here is a photo of all of the components of the base ready for gluing.
This photo shows the base being glued up.
Both of the top surfaces were cracked and also warped. I used two different techniques to fix the warps and stabilize the cracks. the cracks will be wedged later with Mahogany. The bottom surface has only one side visible, so I was able to put butterfly patches in the underside to stabilize the crack. Here is a photo of the butterfly patches laid out on the underside. After they were traced with an Xacto blade I set the patches aside.
Here is a photo of the patches next to the carved out areas they will fit into. The clamp is holding the boards on either side of the crack flush.
Here is a photo of the patches glued in place. No clamps were required because the patches fit snugly into place.
The top surface is veneered on both sides and both sides are visible depending on whether the top is open or closed. This presented a challenge because I could not have butterfly patches in the veneer, So the answer was to go in through the side of the top and insert metal threaded rods into top which bridge the crack and keep it level. Afterwards these rods are sealed inside with Mahogany patches so that they are unseen. This next and last photo shows the rods being inserted with glue. The clamps hold the two boards on either side of the crack flush.
The next post will show the veneer replacement and the fixing of the cracks.