Rotten Porch Rail

 This set of porch rails came to us so that the many layers of paint could be stripped off.  Simple job right?  Well, we got the paint of (simple but not easy!)  and discovered a whole new set of problems.  Years and years of water damage left many of the joints rotten.  The paint was so thick it had actually been holding the rails together.  Without the paint, the rotten joints fell apart.

 You can see in this picture how blackened the wood had become.  We ended up needing to rout out all the worst sections and replace them with new sturdy wood splines.  A spline is a piece of wood, usually inserted on the underside of a repair, that will strengthen the wood around it.  You can see one of the splines we did,  in the picture below.

 The spline repairs were put in with epoxy which is the strongest glue we have.  The epoxy soaks into the surrounding wood and is so strong that to get the wood apart it has to be cut.  We also filled all the rotten nail holes with epoxy.  This way we cold re-assemble the piece and the nails would have something to bite into.

The porch rails were re-assembled and while they aren't particularly pretty, they are much sturdier and the repairs we performed should last a very long time.  The owner of this rain is a faux finish expert so she will be taking it home and painting it herself, using exterior quality paints and finishes.  

Glue Joint Failure

Can you guess how many pieces this High Chair is currently in?  I give you a hint....  it's a lot!  Sometimes we get items in where every bit of glue has failed.  This means all the seams in the seat come apart and  all the joints, whether doweled or tenoned or something fancier, come apart.  When this happens, we have to carefully tag each piece so that it isn't a puzzle trying to get it back together.

There are many reasons for glue to fail.  If the furniture was originally put together with Hide Glue, then a change in temperature or moisture in the air, could cause the glue to fail.  Hide Glue is very strong, as long as it is kept in normal indoor conditions.  But it is activated at high heats so if you leave the chair on the porch in the summer, the glue can be activated and then while the joint is soft (and not clamped) it can become loose and fall apart.  

Other joints fail because a bad or experimental glue was used.  In the early 1900's a Lignin glue was used and it has a very high fail rate.  We get furniture in fairly often that originally had this kind of glue used.  Joints can also fail because not enough glue was used to penetrate the surrounding wood fibers. If the chair has had a prior repair attempt, sometimes an in-experienced repairman will not clean the old glue off before applying new.  The glue then just bonds with the old (already failed) glue, instead of to the actual wood.   

Diagnosing why a joint failed can almost seem like diagnosing a medical condition.  It really does help to know the furniture's history.  But regardless of why the joint failed in the first place,  a skilled, experienced repair specialist can put the furniture back together, regardless of how many pieces it is in.  The new bonds they create between the pieces should last well into the future.  When you go into a shop to get your furniture worked on, be sure to ask lots of questions so that you know what your glue options are, what each glue's risks are, and get a good sense that they know what they are doing!

Spline Repair to a Trestle Table

 This elegant trestle table came in with several breaks on the trestle stretchers which not only were unsightly, but made the table much more weak and unstable.

While the elegant curved contour of these particular trestle stretchers is pleasing to the eye,  they have a weak point built in.  Each stretcher curves in such a way that the grain stops running with the piece of wood and instead runs across it.  This point of 'cross grain' is extremely weak and broke on almost every one of these points.

To repair the breaks we turned the table upside down and glued each break with epoxy.  We like to use this type of glue on breaks since it becomes almost indestructible.  The epoxy works it's way into the pores of the wood so that it becomes almost a part of the wood itself.

Once the repairs were set and the glue had cured, we came back and did extra work on those 'cross grain' sections where the structure was so weak.   To fortify these areas, we created a spline on the underside of the stretchers.  You can see the spline repair here, but once the table is back on it's feet, only the carpet will see the spline!   For those of you whom 'spline' is a new word, let me explain.   What we did is cut a groove in the stretcher right across that break.  We then inserted and epoxied into place a sturdy piece of wood, which has grain running the length of the spline, rather then across it.   This piece of wood will strengthen the weak area so that a second break can not occur in the same vicinity.

Work on this table is just about done.  We  still have some work to do on the veneered top but all the structural work is completed.  We think our customer will be thrilled with the results!

Child Sized Rolltop Desk with a Chalkboard!

This adorable child sized roll top desk just got it's repairs completed today.   I wish I had thought to take a picture before it was repaired!  But I can at least recount for you what we did to get it in it's current cute shape.  You can probably see a pale line across the top, that is where the wood was broken in two.  We could have done color work to make that line  disappear, but the owner's of this desk decided not to have us do it.  We also repaired the tambour unit,  made the chalkboard writing surface be able to slide in and out,  repaired the falling apart cubbies and put the stand back together.

This is such a cute desk.  I envy the child who gets to spend their hours playing school at such a neat little workspace.

Child's Cupboard with a New Epoxy Base.

 Unfortunately, I didn't get any great shots of the front of this piece, and we got the project done so quickly, and it was picked up so quickly, that it was gone, before I even realized it was completed!  So, the pictures I have here, will have to work.

This is actually a child sized kitchen cupboard.  There were multiple repairs it needed, but the biggest one was a problem with dry rot on one side of the base.  We filled the rotted out wood with epoxy to give the wood stability again.  The wood was so rotten we had to apply the epoxy multiple times, as it kept getting soaked up.

After the wood had soaked up all the epoxy it could,  we created a form out of waxed paper, wood scraps and clamps.  We then filled the form with even more epoxy, to make a new base, where the old wood had rotted and was gone.

Here you can see the cupboard's new base.  The old rotten wood has been filled, and the piece can now stand upright again.  Pretty impressive amount of epoxy there wouldn't you agree?  The owner of this piece has decided to undertake the rest of the repairs themselves, but we are happy we could help with this step at least.

Humpty Dumpty Broken Chair Leg

 Someone  certainly took the time to customize the appearance of this chair to their liking!  I think it is great when people are able to express their individual style through their furniture. Unfortunately for them, someone also got a little vigorous with one of the front legs and it broke off into 5 pieces!

It required multiple clamps and quite a bit of carefully done epoxy to put it all back together.  This chair leg wasn't quite as bad as humpty dumpty, but it was close.  As you can see there are still pieces of wood missing even after the ones we had been given were glued back into place.

 Here you can see the finished result of the glue job we did.  As you can see, the voids where wood is missing, have not been filled, and the pale colored break line is still visible.  The owner of this chair decided that it's being sturdy was important, but that it looking brand new, wasn't essential right now. And that is just fine.  We can do as much of a job, or as little of            a job as the customer wants.




The work is done.  You can barely see that there is a break on the left leg, even with no touchup!  The repaired chair leg is so sturdy, it is prepared to withstand many more years, and many more decor choices  .

Block Work on Broken Chair Legs

Well, besides all our weaving and staining, and wood stripping that is going on today, here is another one of our smaller projects that we are working on at the shop.  This chair has a broken front leg.  The entire leg isn't broken off, just the decorative piece at the end.  It has broken in half, it seems, right along the wood grain.  We have epoxied a block of wood onto the chair, and once it is fully hardened, we will carve it to match the other leg which is still in tact.

We have to do this kind of block work fairly often actually.   Here you can see another leg, this one broken much higher up (you can actually see the seam in the left hand picture).  We cut out a section on the back of the leg, glued the break, and glued in a block.  The block will be formed to fit the leg, and then stained to disappear!

Little Maple Chair that Split it's Seams

We have been working on some very big projects lately which unfortunately means some of the little projects have been waiting.  But the big projects got done earlier this week and now we get to move on to smaller things.   This chair is certainly small in stature, but I suppose the project isn't so small after all.  The problem with this poor little chair is that it is made out of Maple.  Maple furniture from the 1950s and 1960s, known as "American Colonial" or "Early American" had a fatal flaw. You see, Maple  shrinks significantly when dried and the seams and joints on pieces made in this era were very inadequately glued as well.  The job of a finish in to protect the wood, so when we stripped the finish off of this chair,  the wood then had a chance to 'adjust' to the dry California air, and all the seams opened up.   We have epoxied the seams back together, now this little chair is ready for a Prep Sanding, and then a nice new protective finish.

Epoxied Chair Seat

This cute country style kitchen chair was cracking along every seam, and also within each piece of wood! It certainly wasn't safe for sitting on in that condition. So as part of our restoration process we filled all the seams and cracks with epoxy. It looks pretty messy right now, but after we sand and prep the chair, all that glue residue will disappear and will only remain in the cracks and seams. Epoxy is an incredibly strong glue so this chair seat shouldn't come apart, or even wiggle for many years to come.