Fabricated Table Braces

I bet you can't guess what the pieces of wood in the above picture are for!   They don't have a useful function, they are purely a decorative piece. Can't guess?  That's ok, I am going to tell you anyway.

They are decorative corner braces for a dining room table.  Our client brought the upper one to us and asked us to make two more, as she was missing a couple.  As simple as this may seem off hand, it is actually a very tricky job.  It requires the use of different router bits, a jig and a 'forstner bit', to exactly re-create the carving from the original.  The 'forester bit' was used to make that circular indentation, it creates an exact circle, while removing the wood as it carves.    Once all that is set, it all has to be reversed to create the carving on the mirror-image corner brace.   

Of course,  that is just the fabrication process.  We haven't begun to talk about the color work necessary to mimic the look of an aged 'original' finish.  As challenging as all those little steps may be,  we have the people here for the job.  As you can see, it came out beautifully.  These corner braces are now on proudly in place on the dining room table,  and no one would ever notice they weren't original.  Now that is a job well done!

Wall Repairs to our Stripping Area

 The work continues on our stripping area remodel.   After 16 years of consistent use, the Zink backsplash has rusted around the base.  We are just finishing up the task of repairing the sections and working to prevent future rust.  To do this,  we have cut out the rusted areas, leaving odd squares of wall exposed.

 We then filled those holes with an expanding foam.  This was tricky, as there was nothing to contain the foam as it expanded.  To solve this issue, we came up with a creative solution involving plastic, boards and our knees.    The plastic could then be peeled off and we have left an essentially flat surface.

 The walls were then covered with 4x8 sheets of heavy plastic paneling which were screwed into place, then sealed around all the edges.  We also sealed the spots where the screws hold the plastic to the Zink.  Our wall repair project is almost done.  This is a good thing!  Our next task is to prepare the elevated floor area, so that the supports are in the right places for the new stripping tanks.  We are getting so close to having this project completed, hopefully will be putting it to use soon.

Fabricating a Carved Settee Leg

 From time to time we have something come to us that not only has a broken leg, but the broken off part is completely gone!  Now usually we like to put any broken off parts back onto the piece, as then the wood is all the same age, and it will continue to age at the same pace as the rest of the item of furniture.  But, in a situation like this, where the broken off piece is completely gone,  we have to start from scratch and do our best to choose wood that will blend with the rest of the piece.

 In this case,  we had a beautiful Settee come in with one of  the more decorative front legs broken off.  The Settee is made out of mahogany so we put together some small pieces of matching mahogany and attached
them to the leg, as you can see in the first picture.   You can see in the second picture that we have taken some of the excess wood off and have drilled holes along the inside curve of the leg to make hand carving a bit easier.  Next a template of the leg shape was attached to the leg, for more refined removal of excess wood.  You can see in the 4th picture that all the excess wood has been removed and the fine shaping is ready to begin.
 The leg carving turned out very well.  It looks almost exactly like the other two on the settee.   Now it is off  to the finishing department.  It is their job to make the epoxy line disappear and of course to stain and finish the entire settee.  It is not particularly often that we have to do this kind of work, but fortunately we have the guys with the skill to pull it off.   Do you have a job you think is impossible?   Bring it to us, clearly this job was not enough of a challenge, so your impossible repair might be just the challenge they need!

Roll Top Desk Gets Some New Pieces.

 Work continues on a Roll Top desk which came to us in so many pieces, I playfully called it the 'Humpty Dumpty' desk.  We put the entire thing together and once we did, the discovery was  made that it was missing a few slats on the tambour unit.  The owner of the desk gave us the go ahead and we had 3 more slats custom made to fit the originals.  Now we have to cut them to length and drill holes to match the rest of the unit.  A wire runs through these holes to keep them together, instead of them all being glued to a cloth.

Another project on this Roll Top desk is that of creating new drawers for the cubbies.  There was only one drawer left.  We were able to use this original drawer to  determine what the styling of the new drawers should  be.  The 3 smaller drawer still need a handle, then all the drawers,  and the new tambour pieces, need to be stained to match the rest of the desk.  This should be an interesting task, and  the finish on the rest of the desk is pretty old an worn.

Tell us about  what projects you are working on right now.  We would love to hear!

Fabricated Table Leaf for a Fancy Table Top

This beautiful table left our shop yesterday, after having finished it's time under our care.  Among other things, it needed a new leaf made so that it could stretch out and accommodate more people.  The table has a fancy veneered top featuring panels that radiate out from the center, and a border all around the outside.  It would have been rather costly for the owner of this table, had we attempted to do some kind of fancy marquetry to match the rest of the table.  Fortunately the table had a section right down the middle with consistent horizontal grain.  We used the same kind of veneer for the leaf and matched the horizontal grain pattern.  The leaf also needed to have 'skirts' made on the edges.

Once the leaf was fabricate we finished the entire table in a water based Brown Cherry stain with a water based Satin finish.  The table also got a 'pore fill' treatment which made the top perfectly smooth. This treatment is quite a bit of extra work and our Finisher did a great job at it.  We are so happy to see this table and it's matching hutch leave our shop with it's happy owner!

Completed Work on Headboard Extension

A while back I was telling you all about a project we were working on, then I completely forgot to show you the final product!  Well here it is, a beautiful bedroom set which we refinished.  But the biggest part of this project was the bed.  It started out as a Full sized bed, and we turned it into a Queen sized bed.  Can you see from this picture what we did?

In case you can't figure it out, you can check it out in these older posts...  

http://furniturerenewalist.blogspot.com/2011/02/update-on-full-to-queen-bed-project.html

http://furniturerenewalist.blogspot.com/2011/02/bed-extensions-making-full-into-queen.html

Now that the set is done,  I think it looks very good.  You can hardly tell that one of the dressers is not actually from the set! What do you think of the work?  Do you like the design for the headboard and footboard extensions?

Making Buggy Wheel Spokes

 We were given an interesting little job recently.  Well, perhaps I shouldn't say 'little' as the work was not little,  although the finished product is quite small.  A customer of ours brought in the wooden wheel spokes that you see in the image above.  He had  hired someone to make these for him.  Unfortunately they just weren't shaped right so he came to us to see what could be done.

We started over shaping new spokes for the adorable buggy wheels you see in the image below.  The wheels look great and the new wooden spokes fit perfectly.  While this does not fit into our usual 'furniture' category,  we truly do enjoy working on interesting projects such as this.