Master Woodworking and Furniture Repair

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This piece was painted black many years ago.  This enamel was stubborn and really gave me fits getting it out of the wood. The piece was in really poor shape.  All of the joints were loose and it basically fell apart in my hands as I examined it the first time.   The top piece was an unmatched piece of pine and I'm really not sure exactly how it was intended to work, but I went with the assumption the top would hinge open, so I had to get that back together and the get new veneer on it. When I reassembled it, the frame pieces were warped, as was the pine center piece, I decided to fill the frame flush and top it with veneer.  There was a lot of structural work to do after I got it stripped.  So, here's how I applied the veneer.  First I had to select my pieces  Also, the filled section and the veneer had to be sealed to ensure that the  contact cement would adhere.  The next day, after ...

I don't know what I did with the original pictures of this beautiful old Lincoln rocker.  So I'll start off with a picture of the nearly finished product.  This one came to me with a heavily damaged and soiled shellac finish.  I wouldn't be surprised if it was original and this chair is dated sometime between 1850 and 1900, so that finish was pretty much gone.  I tried a deep cleaning, but all that did was reveal more damage, so I spoke with the owver and he decided to go ahead with a full refinishing. Below you can get an idea of the degree of wear and damage this piece had. The first step was to clean off all of the old finish.  I don't like to use chemical strippers, but the detail of the carvings really called for it.  Fortunately, it cleaned up nicely and quickly. Eventually, I got it all stripped.  Then I had to reglue and peg all of the joints and repair some deep gouges and chips.  When I got ...

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...