Repair, strip and refinish to restore old pieces. Refinishing is a topic worthy of an entire book. In fact, restoring furniture includes all of woodworking and finishing because all skills may be [...]
After completing the reconstruction of the main broken molding piece, I glued the molding back onto its panel and began restoring the adjacent corner that was also damaged and required repair. [...]
After completing step (F), I used a gouge to hollow out the cove portion of the molding. I selected a gouge with a sweep that matched the cove radius and carefully shaved the wood in the [...]
Read part 1 After allowing the glue to set, I carefully removed the clamped molding from the guitar maker’s vise. At this point, I removed excess wood from the glued-up block using a bandsaw to [...]
A few months ago, I restored a tall case of drawers in green. While the piece was not old, antique, or of substantial emotional value, it was still quite practical as it was tall and had several [...]
Learn how to restore your damaged furniture finishes with these practical tips and techniques. Over time, furniture finishes can become dull or develop various marks and blemishes. This guide [...]
Thoughtful finishing and new leaves prepare this classic for the next 100 years. This old table looks like a prime candidate for refinishing. Scrub off the old finish, sand out all the dings and [...]
As you recall, a few months ago, I wrote about a beautiful chair made of solid mahogany that we bought and found out that it was sadly damaged during shipping. The vendor sent us a replacement, [...]
If you recall, a few weeks ago, I wrote about the unexpected repair job I performed on one of our newly bought solid mahogany chairs (read parts one and two here). What I didn’t expect is that I [...]
The last two repair remedies this chair needed before its inauguration into productive service life were reinstalling it with the old leg brackets and creating and installing a set of new corner [...]
One of the more disappointing joining methods that miserably failed due to the traumatic fall (or jolt) before the chair had been placed in its shipping box was the leg-to-rail and rails to cross [...]
My course of action with any repair, restoration or conservation is: Do No Harm. That is, I try to deal with the essential structural, finish, hardware, etc. issues without forcing changes on the [...]