D.I.Y. Chair Repair

This post may seem a bit counter-productive for us, since one of the services we offer is the repair and re-gluing of chairs. However, if more people used proper materials and techniques when doing their own re-gluing, then we would have an easier time doing the repairs that require the tools that are generally found only in a furniture shop such as ours. I must also confess that I am myself a DIYer, and understand the desire to tackle the simpler problems that happen around my house rather than pay a professional if I can help it. So, without further ado, here’s a brief explanation of how to repair your own chair. 

First, we have to talk about materials. This is incredibly important! When we repair chairs, we have to think about the next person who will have to repair the chair, whether that be next year or in 200 years… Eventually something on the chair will break, and so the joints will have to come apart. So, we have to use water-soluble glues such as Elmer’s Carpenters Interior Wood Glue http://elmers.com/product/detail/e7010 . Never use epoxy, or gorilla glue or Titebond II or III when repairing a chair, as these products make it extremely difficult to repair in the future. When repairing a very old chair, you can use Hide Glue (actually made with animal hide), as that is the only product that will attach to the old hide glue used on period pieces. Also, do not use nails, screws, or steel brackets, unless they were very clearly part of the original construction of the chair; when used in joints, they will only weaken them by removing vital wood.

So, Step 1. Label all the pieces with masking tape. Left to right, front to back, with numbers on spindles or rungs. You may think you can lay them all out and remember where everything goes, but inevitably you WILL be distracted by something right after you get everything apart, and you won’t remember where things go.

Step 2. Check for nails or screws and remove them. If you don’t, you WILL break the chair, and the repair will get much more difficult. 

Step 3. Take the wiggly old thing apart! Depending on how loose the chair is, this can be easy or hard. You will want to get the joints wet, and either use a rubber mallet to gently tap things apart, or use a hammer with a piece of pine between your hammer and your chair to protect your chair. Once you have some of it apart, you can wiggle round joints clock-wise so that they end up turning in the hole counter clock-wise and spin out, continuing to use a lot of water. (If you are dealing with a water-soluble glue, this will be easy, and your hands will be quite sticky by this point)

Step 4. Scrape any remaining glue out of the holes and ends of spindles with a standard screw-driver, old chisel, or knife (don’t cut yourself!). 

Step 5. Assemble any and all clamps that you have (you will need at least 10-12) and dry clamp your chair back together, using pine blocks between your clamp and the chair to protect the chair. This is frustrating, since you have to take it apart again, but if you don’t do this, you may find in the middle of gluing your chair up that your clamps won’t hold and you can’t pull the joints back together tightly (if the joints aren’t tight, the chair will break!). Once you have done this, take the chair back apart and proceed!

Step 6. Put glue on each rung or spindle and its hole consecutively as you put them together. Start with the base, and move up the chair. (that is if it is a windsor or something like it. If it is a ladder back, start with the back and then move to the front.) 

Step 7. Clamp it all together, and wipe any glue off of the chair that has squeezed out of the holes with a damp cloth (if there is no squeeze-out, chances are you didn’t put enough glue in!). You need to leave the clamps on it for an absolute minimum of 2 hours if you use yellow carpenter’s glue, and 12 hours if you used Hide Glue, and do not allow anyone to sit in it for 24 hours. 

Now, just kick back, relax, and wait for the glue to dry! I hope this helped you in your quest to return your chair to it’s previous sturdiness! If at any point you find yourself in way over your head, give us a call at 978-281-6024 or bring your chair to our shop!

Why Do You Do This?! (Part 2)

Last week I tackled the piece of our business that has taken the bulk of our time over the last 20-some-odd years, furniture restoration. Now, I will tackle something that Dad has done since he was an apprentice to another fine wood-worker, custom furniture construction, or as we’re calling it now, “artisan furniture creation”. 

From the beginning of the design process all the way to choosing which finish to put on a particular piece, Dad and I bicker our way through each decision. We have gone back and forth over things like the height of our “Low Tavern Tables” which you can see here:

https://www.facebook.com/therestorationworks/photos/a.1113664745329517.1073741834.163034613725873/1121684214527570/?type=3&theater

When all is said and done, and our unique relational method of making these decisions has finished changing our furniture, we are happy with the result! So, quick answer, we enjoy almost everything about the process of taking raw materials and making something beautiful. 

Another piece of it, though, relates to my previous post, where I talked about how large companies are cutting huge corners in their construction process and using materials that will not last, and suckering people into a vicious cycle of buying new furniture every few years after their particle board monstrosities have begun to disintegrate. At every step, from the design process to choosing wood and actually building the pieces, we are thinking about how to make our furniture outlast the person who buys it. We believe that choosing the best materials available ourselves and putting great thought into about how wood movement will affect our design, while employing traditional methods that have served master woodworkers for centuries, will achieve this goal. 

We often use reclaimed pine in our furniture (in fact I have saved some boards from my house project for this purpose!), but we don’t restrict ourselves to this, and have built pieces out of all sorts of local and exotic hardwoods, always choosing the wood ourselves. In the interest of making our work last as long as possible, we do employ fine plywoods when we do not want wood movement to ruin veneer work, or Dad’s etchings. You see, if we veneered over solid wood, eventually the veneer would buckle and flake off, due to the movement of the wood beneath, but when we veneer over fine plywood, we can be confident that the veneer work will last, because the plywood doesn't move the way solid wood does. This is part of the “marriage of traditional methods with modern materials” that I referenced in my third post on “Veneer…Good or Bad?”

So, to sum all of this up, we are passionate about building furniture that will last for generations to come. However, we could do that without incorporating etchings or using the designs that we do. We also love our little island, and the beauty and the history of the port of Gloucester inspires the images that become part of our furniture in the form of Dad’s etchings and the carvings and marquetry that we have included in our pieces. We love the history of the pieces that we have restored, and so we use many of the same design elements in the furniture we create, hoping that these pieces will be handed down for many generations.

Why do you do this?! (part 1)

This is a question that we have heard from various customers over the years as we have described all of the details that go into restoring a particular piece. We usually laugh and brush it off, and I can’t lie, there are times when we ask ourselves that same question while dealing with a particularly persnickety project. We have never really answered it in a serious way, and I guess it seems like now would be as good a time as any to give it a go. 

The way I see it, since our business has two sides (antique restoration and artisan furniture creation), the answer to this question has two parts as well. Today, I’ll tackle the antique furniture restoration side to the question and I will try to cover the other part next week.

As you walk into our shop, the building itself gives you the feeling of well-worn age. While it certainly isn’t nearly as old as many of the pieces that we restore, its early 20th century post-and-beam construction (mixed with steel reinforcement) just feels old but solid. This feeling is something that we prize in many of the pieces we restore. Some antique pieces are simply delicate by design (and should be carefully restored and displayed), but many pieces were originally very sturdy and have just become a little wobbly over time. These pieces were built in such a way that they can be taken apart, the old dried-up hide glue replaced with new hide glue that will last another couple of centuries, and the pieces are once again as solid and functional as they were when they were new.

We also love to see the care and pride that went into the building of furniture in times gone by. From the wood that was chosen, to the finish that was applied, great care was taken to ensure that the piece—be it a simple chair or a fine high-boy—would last for generations to come. This is something that has nearly been lost today! Many companies are happier to build pieces out of particle board and staple them together, than they are to build something that would last. Granted, the piece made of particle board is much cheaper to manufacture, but it will only last a few years before it begins to disintegrate and the customer gets stuck in a cycle of replacing it with more pieces of the same quality. We fight this trend daily, by taking antiques which are beginning to fall apart after over a hundred years of frequent use and breathing life back into their old bones. 

We enjoy the variety in our work, as no two pieces are the same, and we enjoy the challenge of figuring out how they were made, and how best to restore them so that they last as long as they possibly can without losing their historical integrity. So when you bring your piece in, feel free to ask us how we will approach your particular project, but don’t be surprised when you get more detail than you bargained for; we care deeply about what we do!