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Furniture Restoration

18K views 84 replies 14 participants last post by  Tangle 
#1 ·
Learning Experience!

A while back, I gave a PP slide show of my woodworking hobby as a program for my Lion's club. In that program, I showed a couple of curb side pick-ups that I had reworked and "restored" to usefulness. Well, long story short, a fellow club member approached me a few weeks ago and asked me if I could recover some furniture. I explained that I had recovered a simple footstool and such but nothing like a full piece of furniture. His response, "Do you want to try?" There was a needed repair on one of the pieces that he noted at this time as well. After a bunch of him-hawing, I finally relented to take a look. A few days later after I come home from work, my wife tells me that my friend had come by and unloaded some furniture in the garage. I raise the garage door and am faced with with two Victorian parlor charis, a Settee and a footstool. I look it over and call to tell him that it was probably over my head. The same reply, "Do you want to try?" Again, I try to him-haw out of it, but relent to try with a grave warning that it would be my first attempt. He says he's seen my work and has confidence in me (he's a sales rep and knows how to butter people up). I low-ball a bid as a "learning experience" with no confidence that I should be charging him at all.

First step, buy three or four books on upholstery work, read and study. Order and receive some specialized tools and materials, The furniture is on "the list" of projects sitting in my shop.

I have drawer slides on back order for my Craftmans chests (see other blog), so there's an opportunity to get started on the "recovering." I tear the first chair down, rework/reset the inner springs, return the original padding, and recover with the new upholstery they provided. The first chair is very slow (two full days) as I figure out technique like picking up and setting a tack with a magnetic hammer while holding the frabric with the other hand. The second chair goes a little faster. I'm keeping track of my time in case I'm ever crazy enough to accept another project like this. I vastly underestimated how much time it would take me, even as a beginner. Good thing I'm at peace with this as a learning experience! The chairs aren't done until I receive a flat braided decorative trim called "gimp" from my friend which is glued down around the fabric edges to hide the tack heads. But so far, they look pretty good. (Click on the thumbnails for larger pics.)



The exposed wood of the footstool needs to be refinished, so I move on to the Settee which I knew would be the most challenging because of the needed repair and the "quilted" upholstery on the back. OM gosh, what did I get into here? I think I'm going to regret accepting this challenge mainly because of this piece. When I remove the seating material and padding to get a good look at what it might take to make the repair, I discover extensive dry rot. This piece has probably been stored in a barn or outshed sometime in the past. But the last upholsterer covered up the evidence. I remove hundreds of tacks in the seat rails that have accumulated through previous recoverings. After I'm done the wood is not only soft and brittle, it looks like its worm eaten because of all the tack holes. The last reworker had installed some primative reinforcements (nails attaching corner blocks and metal straps crisscrossing the bottom of the seat to keep the springs in the seat). But anywhere on the seat frame, I could burrow a hole into the wood with my finger. How do I repair this? The legs. back frame and arm rests appear to be solid walnut, but all the curved seat frame pieces are Poplar? Pine? with a walnut veneer. The front carvings are applied. It's easy to see why it broke. The seat frame pieces aren't steam bent and/or laminated - simply bandsaw cut from a piece of wood and it has cracked along the grain at a natural weak spot where the grain runs out into a curve.











Of course I need to show my friend and his wife what we're facing. I think these pieces are sentimental family heirlooms. But I just can't cover this up again. I'm thinking it's time to build new seat rails if this piece is going to live again.
 
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#4 ·
Bob -

I've just seen ads for the epoxy products and that option has crossed my mind for further research. The front rail failed/cracked because of wood weakness and I'm concerned about the structural integrity of the piece when the next adult plops down it. Do you think the epoxy would help with strength? The ad pictures that I recall didn't show load bearing repairs but things like rotted window sashes and such.

Paul
 
#5 ·
Wow Paul - you're brave! The chairs came out really nice!

Can't say much about the settee problems, my gut is that the epoxy wouldn't be strong enough to carry the weight as you mentioned. And, with the dry rot that you've described, it sounds like the best approach is replacing the rotten piece. Is that do-able? How extensive is the dry rot and how much would need to be replaced? It looks like the crack is on the front apron - true?
 
#6 ·
Dorje -

Yes, the crack is on the front apron which is double curved and simply bandsawed out of a solid piece of wood (Poplar? Fir?) with a walnut veneer & walnut carvings applied on the outside. (All the seat rails are this way and in pretty much the same kind of shape - the front rail broke first because it has the longest unsupported span)

I'm considering a bent lamination which I've done for more gentle curves, but these curves are a more acute. I'm also considering steam bending which I've also done - but under the supervision of a teacher a few years ago, and not since.

Right now, I'm pondering while I get a couple of other larger and simpler projects out of my way. For either approach I will need room to build/prepare a form, maybe a steam box/pvc pipe? and move quickly with clamps. And I hate running into other projects with clamps and hips and shins and glue, etc. while trying to move fast. The door also fell off my tool cabinet and is now sitting on the floor. So the "redo" of the tool cabinet doors from the "found-wood-nail-together-job" of years ago to something more attractive & "furniture-maker-like" has moved off the back burner. It seems like no matter where I set and lean that door, there's something I need behind it!
 
#7 ·
Just to clarify - is it only the front apron that you'll have to replace? The others are sound?

I like the idea of the bent lamination, using thin strips, say an 1/8" to 3/16" thick, to build up that double curve. You have the front apron to build your jig from, which is handy. I'm definitely no expert on the bent laminations though, but that sounds about right. Though my gut tells me that you're (maybe a bit more) interested in the steam bending process and may go that route…

I haven't done any veneer work and the carvings would be out of my league for sure. Will you be able to salvage the carvings and simply reapply or will you have to make those as well?

And, you better get crackin' on your toolbox! Sheesh - you've got you're work cut out for you…
 
#8 ·
A brave soul you are Paul. I would not not where to start, but I would agree that the wood need replaced rather than just epoxy or something else.

I bet your next estimate not be low balled. While this is a learning experience, it does not have to be an expensive one. Hopefully your customer is at least paying for the materials, even if not for the labor you are putting into these restorations.
 
#9 ·
Dorge,

Actually, I think it would be best to replace all the seat rail pieces -they're all in about the same shape.

I do hope I can salvage the carvings and reapply. I'm thinking the piece is probably put together with hide glue so I'm hoping a little moist heat will let me pop them off.

And actually, I'm leaning toward lamination - even though I don't have a great bandsaw for resawing. The originals are a full 1.5" thick - I'm thinking that would be a good 1.5 to 2 hours of steaming for a piece that thick and again, the acute curves would require quite a bit of pressure - maybe more than I could exert with pipe clamps. But then, with the grain following the curves instead of running out into the curves, the rails wouldn't need to be as thick for the same or greater strength. I could laminate a "lesser" wood (ash?) for the bulk of the rails and just use walnut for the outer laminate.

Bill,

The customer is providing all the upholstery and trim. I've invested in some tools and materials, though. I'll get enough to cover materials and a minimal wage. They commented that I quoted too low when I agreed to the project, so I'm contemplating going back to them and perhaps seeking another agreement because of these unforeseen structural issues.

I've developed a time sheet and materials expense ledger for these learning projects so I can better estimate in the future. I hope for this to be a real part-time vocation in 6 or 8 years - after the kids are through college. This "non-profit" beginning is part of my planned path towards charging real living prices in the future.
 
#11 ·
I was going to suggest using Walnut as the outer lamination. It seems you figured that out also. It would save having to veneer it. Are the feet all ok?
 
#13 ·
Yes, the other solid walnut parts seem to be okay - legs, feet, back, etc. - I'll have to figure out how to tighten up some of the joints in the backrest. But it's just the seat rails, constructed of an alternate veneered wood, that seem to be unsound.

I'm still waiting on a backorder of wooden slides for my A&C chests drawers and I'll be calling today for a customer to come get the afore mentioned two simple large projects out of my way. So, I may soon begin gingerly disassembling the Settee and then, constructing forms to bend/laminate the replacement parts. Of course, I don't have any ash or walmut on hand.
 
#16 ·
I went and purchased a 2×12x12' today to double glue up into 3" material for building my forms. Two 4 foot pieces (3×12x4') will make the front skirt form and the two 2 foot pieces (3×12x2') will make the side pieces form.

Now to dismantle the Sette (further) and use the original pieces as the pattern to cut the curves in the forms.
 
#21 ·
Are We Having Fun Yet?

I built up some 2×12 material to make the blocks for the forms.

I removed the webbing and springs. All four corner blocks came off easily

One end of the front apron came out easily. The other took a little "coaxing" and the apron broke again in the process. There's no way it not would have broken again if I had tried to patch it and put it back together.



Here's the front apron held together with spring clamps. It's ready to transfer the outline to the form block. Then to the bandsaw.



The side rails and back rails aren't in any better shape.

 
#24 ·
Bent Lamination of New Front Apron

(As always - click on the pics for a larger view)

I outlined the curve of the original front apron onto the wood block and cut the curves on the bandsaw to make the wooden form:



My bandsaw blade was too dull to resaw the ash well and it started to wander, so I quit after a few inches. Rather than take the time to buy a good resaw blade and build a resaw fence/jig, I decided to resaw on my table saw using a featherboard to keep it tight against the fence. With two 1/8" kerfs, I was able to get three pieces in the neighborhood of 7/32" thickness from the 15/16" x 2 3/4" x 60" boards. To take out the saw marks, I ran the two outside pieces through the planer (with a homemade bed insert for thin planing) and the third middle piece through the jointer and planer and took them down to about 5/32." You can see the walnut piece on the left for the outside "front" laminate



This gives you a sense of how much it needed to bend before I started slinging glue. The original apron is 1 1/2", but I went with a ~ 1 1/4" lamination. I believe the 1 1/4" lamination will be at least as stong as the original piece bandsawed from solid soft wood and veneered - probably stronger:



I tried to get my clamps set up as much as possible before hand and I laid out all the pieces before spreading glue. I should have gone and gotten some glue that wouldn't set up as fast, but lazily I went with my yellow Titebond that I had on hand. Therefore sorry, I didn't have time to stop and take a picture of spreading glue.



After some deep breaths, a brief walk down the drive cleaning my bi-focal safety glasses, a preliminary prayer and asking the painter next door to pray for me, too, I commenced slinging glue and tightening clamps as fast as I could. After much grunting and groaning, a bucket of sweat, a skinned bleeding knuckle and a pinched bleeding finger . . .



You never have too many clamps! Fortunately, I was able to improvise on the fly and gain some leverage tightening the clamps by hooking a six inch metal C clamp around the clamp handles. Next time, I'll have a short length of pipe handy that will slip over the end of the pipe clamp handle.

I shut off the lights and went to the house. I'll let it dry and set for at least 24 hours. But it will probably be at least 72 hours before I get back to the shop for any length of time. I'll clean it up and show it to you out of the form ASAP. Next: attempting to remove the applied carvings from the original and laminating two slightly curved side seat frame pieces - as well as the back seat frame piece.
 
#30 ·
Bent Lamination of New Front Apron *2

Click on image for larger view

Okay, I couldn't wait quite twenty-four hours. Cut to rough length, dry-glue clean-up and run through the jointer. There's some small gaps but they will be covered with upholstery.

 
#36 ·
Further Disassembly and Side Rail Lamination

click pics for larger view

Side rail lamination with dry rot side rails - stack of laminates for the other side rail sitting in front



It just keeps getting better!

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Old repair:



Need to laminate a replacement for this old curved back rail next:

 
#41 ·
Final Back Rail Lamination

click pic for larger view



I was able to use the same block of wood that I used to form the front rail. I cut the front rail shape off center in hope I could make that work.
The other completed laminations are in the backbround with the original pieces
starting to get excited about the joinery and reassembly
probably ought to consider the refinishing of the rest of the original pieces first
still have to try to remove applied carvings from the original front rail
my research says moist heat and steam will soften what I believe is probably hide glue
 
#44 ·
Removing applied carvings

click for larger picture

The challenge was to get these applied carvings off intact so I can apply them to the new rail:



1. I sliced the carvings and some of the wood from the old rail off with the bandsaw
2. I put a big pot of water on the stove to boil with a fry pan splatter screen on top.
3. I set the two carvings on the splatter screen in hopes that I could soften the glue and steam the backer wood off the carvings. After gingerly and patiently sticking a sharp pocket knive between the carving and the backer wood every so often and setting them back on the steam pot for three hours . . . Success!



They need to be stripped of the old finish - but they appear to be made of Rosewood and I misidentified the backer wood previously - because of the dry rot, I thought it was a soft wood - but in fact, the backer wood was white oak



Here they are placed where they will be placed on the new rail.
 
#51 ·
Joinery and Reassembly



Front rail is tenon and mortise on both ends

Side rails - fronts tenon and mortise. backs are doweled

Back rail - dowels on both ends

Basically I put it back together with the joinery that was used originally - theres enough room to pin the tenons from the inside - I may do that yet

Using laquer thinner and an x-acto knife to scrape, the carvings cleaned up nicely
 
#58 ·
Apply Carvings and Match Color



I glued the carvings on the new shaped front apron. I found Minwax Rosewood Gel Stain that I think is going to work. I've applied two coats of stain. As you can see, I need to get a couple of shades darker.



Side Rail
 
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