NEW UPDATE 11/30/2014! -- Project Log -- Spindle Rocking Chairs

One of my favorite customers, brought me another challenging refinishing project -- this time a pair of spindle rocking chairs.  They are beautiful, but very worn.  Someone had reglued them in the past few years, but the alignment is off, so I'm going to have to straighten that out.  Also, if you notice in some of the detail pictures, there's a patterned carving that runs on all of the upper surfaces.  I'll need to clean up the channel and restore the white pigment that it had been filled with.

I've started stripping them, and it is going to be a looooong tedious process cleaning up all of the spindles.  




. . . and finally, this one is ready for bleaching


Whew, I was starting to wonder if I was ever going to finish all those spindles.  I've started putting the finish on and it too is challenging.  It has to go on thin, with a dry brush to avoid drips with all ofd the irregular surfaces.  After I get both chairs coated, I will have to level the finishes.  Put the top coat on a generate a nice satin finish.  Then I have to tackle the inlays.




It's been a while since the last update.   I got the base finish on and decided I needed to adjust the color.   I started blending in a little mahogany into the finish and the chair started to come alive.



I still have some blending to do and then I need to get going on the inlays.

Update 10/27/2014
I started working with the inlay to get a feel for how I want to go forward.  I trimmed up some basswood, and cleared the channels.  Then glued the basswood up and taped it into place.  You can see that on the picture below.


After the glue set, I used a spoon knife to trim away the excess and level the trim with the surfaces.
Here's a look at the leveled inlay
 The curves on the back were a little tricky, but nothing like the fancy work above.


 Chair one has its final topcoat.  One down, one to go . . .

I made some good progress on the second chair over the weekend despite 3 days without power.



Comments

CKDesigns said…
Wow that is awesome. I love to see old items restored. They have so much history. Great job Dave.
November 16, 2014 at 10:39 PM
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