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7K views 10 replies 5 participants last post by  Kentuk55 
#1 ·
Restoring an old school desk/chair into a guitar players chair

A few years ago, I happened to find a nice old oak school desk chair on the curb in someones trash. I had been looking for such a chair to make into a guitar players chair.



It was one of those chair-desk combos that originally had an arm desk on the right hand side. At some point in it's life, someone sawed the desk support off the right front leg and used it as a chair. It also had a pretty hard life and ended up broken, split, and sitting outside at some point because the soft wood had rotted out of the grain leaving deep bear-claw like scratches in places.



My plan is to repair and refinish it and add a cradle on the side to use as a guitar stand.

It was pretty easy to disassemble since most of the joints had been loosened up over the years of abuse. A few of them were a little stuck though, so I used a bottle jack to put some tension on it while I heated the dowels with a hair dryer.

Before disassembling the chair, I labeled each piece so I'd be sure to put them back in the same spot. Many of the slat pieces look the same, but the legs are slightly tapered and splayed, so they're a bit different.

I'll talk about the patch material I tried to use in the next entry.



The seat came apart in three pieces








 
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#5 ·
Dry fit, dowels, and chickening out

I'm still plugging away on the guitchair project. I did a dry fit today and found an issue I needed to fix with one of the dowel holes, it had been drilled off center and split the corner of the piece. I left a few of the original dowels in place because they were rock solid. I just had to make sure there weren't any in two directions which hinders assembly.

The chair is in pieces on the bench and should be ready to assemble in the next few days.





I had been playing with my new pantograph to engrave the Martin Guitar logo on the top back slat, but I'm officially chickening out on it. Not only is it very problematic because the back is curved, but its also old splintery white oak that I'm pretty sure would chip out, and I only have one chance at it, so I think I'll save it for the cradle I'll build on the side to hold the guitar. Below is the best sample engraving I could manage from the pantograph router.

 
#9 ·
Refinished the top slat, ready for poly

I finally got around to re sanding the top slat on the back where the water mark had caused the stain to really soak in and make a nasty looking spot. I draped a sheet over the chair for a couple weeks and let the stain dry completely before working on it again. Here's what it looked like when I started:



I first gave it a few good wipes with lacquer thinner to remove what stain I could with chemicals, then I masked off the upright sections and hand sanded starting with 100, then 150, then 220.



This was after sanding and before staining. I didn't have to take it all the way down to pure clean wood, besides that, this old oak has a lot of red color to it anyway.


Here's the final result. Looks WAYYY better. There were a few other spots that needed touched with a second coat anyway. It's sitting on the table now waiting for a less humid day when I'll spray it with some satin clear poly.

 
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