Crown Molding Restoration, Part One
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...
Edge-Knot Repair
Filling knots with colored epoxy usually works quite well, but sometimes the void is in a spot that’s difficult to fill, like the edge of a board. Here’s how to...
Unexpected Out of the Box Chair Restoration – Part 6
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....
Hand Plane Restoration
Bringing an old hand plane back to life is simple to do, and will yield a top-not tool. When I build a project, I use a variety of “fancy” tools...
Yet Another Rendezvous With Our New but Broken Bamboo Chairs
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...
Clamps for Delicate Work
Most of the clamps in our woodworking arsenal are designed to produce tons of pressure per square inch. While we use them to hold pieces over the workbench, close joints,...
Unexpected Out of the Box Chair Restoration – Part 4: The End of the Beginning.
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...
Unexpected Out of the Box Chair Restoration – Part 3: The Right Honorable Screw Joint.
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...
Unexpected Out of the Box Chair Restoration – Part 2
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...
Unexpected Out of the Box Chair Restoration – Part 1
A few weeks ago, my spouse purchased two Faux bamboo Chippendale mahogany chairs for our dining table. The chairs were a reproduction of a Victorian furniture style and meant to...
Fighting Rust with Brass and Bronze
The summer is here in earnest, and with it came the rising humidity. Humidity and ferrous-based metals such as carbon steel and cast iron don’t get along that well, and...
Patching Woodworking Mistakes
A long-time carpenter shares a repair trick to hide the mistakes made by ham-handed apprentices. For more than 30 years I was a traveling carpenter foreman in charge of installation...
