Dog Chewed Table Leg

 This is not our first post about having to repair a piece of furniture that has been the victim of a teething puppy.  Unfortunately, wood is such a great surface for puppies to chew on.  The owner of this table did the right thing though in bringing the table legs to us.

We began by filling the damaged areas and contouring them to the correct shape.  The entire length of the corner we were able to fill with wood, and the smaller, more oddly shaped damage we filled with a wood colored epoxy putty.   You can see the result of those structural repairs in the above picture.  From there it left the hands of our Repair Craftsman and entered the Touchup Man's territory.   He did all the cosmetic repairs to the leg.  A few different methods were used, including burn-ins and hand paining in the woodgrain with pigment powder colors.  The damage to the table leg is now invisible.    The tricky thing about touchup repairs, is that if you know where the damage originally was, you can almost always look hard and find it again,  but if you don't know where the damage was,  you will never find it.

The leg is now ready to take it's place back in the dining room.  Hopefully the puppy has found some better things to chew on and will leave this piece of furniture alone.

Weaving Samples for Inspiration

We have a fun project we are working on for our office that I want to share with you.  Very soon, when you come into our office, you will see a beautiful display of cane samples hanging on our walls.   Most people only are familiar with one  cane pattern, generally known as '6 strand'.  We wanted to give our customers a better idea of the variety of weaves available, in case the inspiration would give them an idea about a different look for their chair.  We have 8 completed samples so far and saveral more beatiful designs on the way.  In these photos you can see a ‘4 Strand’ weave, ‘Victoria’, ‘Double Victoria’, ‘Star Of David’, ‘Daisies’, ‘Double Daisies’, and ‘Daisy and Buttons’.  These are just a few weaving examples, there are som any out there to choose from.  We can also weave colored strands into the design, and weave in beautiful center medallions.  I will post photos of those for you later. 

We would love for you to bring us your chair, and work with us to find a beautiful, different, decorative weave, that will set your chair apart from the rest.

Final Look at a Repaired Marquetry Table

 This table came to us some time ago in desperate need of some veneer expertise.  It is a 'home made' table, which makes the original work quite remarkable!  Unfortunately the glue just didn't stand the test of time, and there were pieces of veneer peeling up and breaking off all over the place.  We began our work by stripping the table, which revealed the true nature of how much work was needed.  You can see the work needed, in the top photo.  We were able  to salvage many of the pieces that had peeled or broken off, and re-glue them into place.  But for the rest of the damage, we had to try and find a matching veneer and make patches.  This turned out to be a true challenge.  Much of  the veneer on this table is rare or obscure, so that made it hard to find replacements.  In addition, when we did find the correct replacement veneer,  the older pieces had often darkened with age, so the patches were still visible.  The wood grain matched, but the depth of color did not.  This meant we had to use subtle dye techniques to bring the new wood to the same tone as the old.  We also had to employ some expert touchup techniques where the old veneer had tiny little chips, or the seams between veneers were no longer as crisp as they once were.

Once the tricky veneer work was completed, and all the necessary touchup and dye was done, we moved on to replacing the finish.  We applied a shellac as that was the original finish. To replicate the color we used 4 coats,  2 of orange shellac and 2 of super blonde shellac.  The table looks fantastic. The colors of the veneers are vibrant and have depth.  It is once again a masterpiece that can proudly grace the living room of the original maker's family and descendants.

To see more photos of the work on this table check out our Flickr Page here...   Dodecagon Marquetry Table

Dodecagon Marquetry Table

Dodecagon Marquetry Table, a set on Flickr.

Come see the transformation of this table from a peeling, cracking veneer disaster, to a work of art!

A New Life for an Old Dresser

 This chest of drawers came to us years ago so that we could strip it.  The customer wanted to do the finish work on it, so it left our shop clean and ready for sanding, and staining.  After realizing recently that they just weren't getting to the project, they brought it back to us to complete the work we started.

First off, there were some repairs that needed to be done,  new drawer bottoms to be cut, a few areas patched where the wood was missing, and the top needed some bleaching.  There were also some gouges that needed to be steamed out.

Then the fun began, color time!  The customer came in and we put a few different stain color samples on the wood.  We like to do this so that they get a really good idea of what their piece will look like when it is completed.  Stains can look different on different woods, so looking at a chart on the wall isn't very helpful, it is better to see the stain on the actual wood it will be on. She chose a beautiful Cognac stain with a Satin sheen finish.  The piece has new hardware and looks beautiful now that the work is done.  One of the things I really love about this piece is that it's owners decided to leave some of it's imperfections visible.  There are scratches visible under the finish, some spots where the wood has darkened, and an old burn mark about the size of a dime on one of the top corners.    The work we did made it beautiful again, but without removing it's visible history.

Fancy Marquetry Table gets a Touchup

 This home made marquetry table came to us because the veneer  on the top was damaged and peeling. We stripped the table and then went to work re-gluing the raised areas and cutting new pieces where the veneer had to be replaced all together.

All the veneer repairs have been completed, but there were still flaws in the marquetry all over the place and these had to be corrected with touchup.  Some of the flaws were simply because the wood was not the same age, and so hadn't darkened with time,  and some of them were from the original veneer that had tiny little breaks and nicks.
Our color wizard chose 3 different pigment powders from his collection to create this mustardy yellow.  He used White, Green, Canary Yellow and Pine.  This is the mixture for just one of the colors he had to use, each different wood type he touched up on this piece needed it's own special custom blend.

This table top uses many different kinds of woods including Birds Eye Maple, Rosewood, Lacewood, Elm and Ebony.  The colors he chose, along with his expert fine gran strokes, blended perfectly with each wood he was working on.  The table top looks beautiful and is ready for it's final step,  a coat of orange Shellac over the entire table.  

Hand Carved Drawer Handles

 There is a nice old dresser in our shop for restoration right now which has beautiful hand carved handles.  Unfortunately one of those handles is missing.  That means it is part of our job to re-create that handle.

We started out by cutting two pieces of  wood,  one the basic shape of  the handle, and one the basic shape of the decorative fruit. Stacked on top of each other, you can get an idea of how the handle will turn out.  We now need to carve and contour the cut out shapes.

The curve of the handle was cut with a chisel before being sanded smooth,  then the accent lines were cut with carving knives.  The fruit turned out to be a greater challenge,  each handle was just slightly different, so our goal was to make it blend without being exactly like any of the others.

While the 'fruit' has yet to be permanently connected to the handle,  you can see that the project has really turned out pretty well!  it still needs to be stained, but we are going to wait until the rest of the dresser has been stripped, repaired and sanded.  That way we can stain the entire piece at once.   I will be sure to post more pictures so you can all see the progress.