Master Woodworking and Furniture Repair

I've got several projects going on right now, but I thought I'd build a post dealing with turning spindles.  Pretty much every woodworker I know loves turning wood on a lathe.  It's very satisfying shaping and smoothing the wood as it spins in front of you.  A customer has a crib that he is re-engineering and he needs four spindles turned matching the originals.    This project started with selecting some white oak that had a grain pattern similar to the original wood. Next the stock has to be glued into blanks, squared and dimensioned. Below the first blank is mounted on the lathe and roughed into a round/cylindrical shaped using a rasp and roughing chisel. Then the roughed unit is smoothed down to nearly the final maximum diameter.  I've begun to lay out the pattern below.  I do all my work freehand, so I spend a lot of time measuring and checking. I've cut in the first couple of inches using the actual spindl...

This beautiful old sewing machine is in need of some serious TLC.  There are lots of beautiful carvings and features, but there's equally as much damage.  It's going to be a challenge to salvage as much as possible to preserve the character of the piece without being too heavy-handed. The top is pretty much ruined with water damage.  There's no saving the veneer.  Clenaing up the intricate details is going to be tedious, but the payoff is going to be worth it. Here's a look inside.  The action is surprisingly sophisticated.  Nice nickel plated hinges, too  Here's the machine exposed.  The cowl on the back will need to be rebuilt.  The wood is pretty much gone. So now it's in pieces waiting to be stripped, fixed, finished and reassembled.  This is going to a breathtaking piece when I finish it. UPDATE 11/30/15 Stripping went OK,  What was left of the old finish came off pretty easily, but t...

A good friend asked me to see what I could do with this timeworn old mirror.  It's an attractive piece, but it's really in rough shape.  The original plywood backer is delaminating.  The veneer on the front is all but ruined.  So, it's going to be a lot of work to restore this and maintain its original materials. You can get a feel for how bad the plywood has decomposed in the picture below. The fancy trim pieces also function as mirror holders. The worst of the veneer damage is on the base of the frame.  Patch and match isnt going to work because the veneer is too water damaged.  I need to remove it, but very carefully so I can use it to make a pattern for the new veneer.  The process of steaming the veneer off (at my wife's suggestion) is pretty straightforward.  I put a soft cloth soaked in water on top of the veneer and then I put a hot iron on it.  I let it steam until the rag was dry and then I used a putty knife to tease ...