French Provincial Styled Antique Writing Desk

Here's a really memorable repair.

My customer brought this fantastic hand-made French Provincial styled writing desk to the shop. Her family history goes back at least four generations in the Denver area. In this case we're talking about a gentleman who owned a store in lower downtown Denver in the 1860-1880 time frame. Cool stuff. This was his desk!


It belongs to my customer now...a great, great granddaughter? She explained how that when she occasionally needed to move it, the back left leg complained a lot, then...it fell off. That's memorable in and of itself, but upon close inspection of the broken area it was obvious to me that the top bulbus flare of the leg had long been the tasty dinner for some now long gone worms. Many years ago they had eaten themselves out of the wood and disappeared "into the night." (see pic below)

This beautiful piece is the handiwork of a fine craftsman similarly swallowed up into that long night. But his workmanship still sings loud and clear in the glory of this beautiful piece. So, in a response to the challenge he has introduced, and for my customer's sake--to repair his work and to save this beautiful desk--the question at hand is about what to do now?

I began the project pragmatically. I carefully removed the entire leg from the desk. Then, I carefully cut away the spongy portion of the worm eaten bulb from that leg. The picture (left below) shows this spongy cut-out. Below, I'm holding it in front of (juxtaposed on) the newly finished leg so you can see where it fit.
Freeing the leg from the desk offered me a lot more flexibility. I was able to utilize several machines in the shop, and it enhanced the gluing, clamping, and final finishing processes.







 I carefully fabricated a new piece from raw Ash wood stock and glued it into the original leg. I also had to fabricate the hip portion, as a separate piece in this case. (It had apparently dropped off and was lost from the leg years ago as the worms did their tunneling throughout the upper portion of that leg...see pic below.)

With these processes complete, the last challenge was to securely replace the leg back into the desk's frame and supporting structures.

 




So, is this a beauty or what?! I've offered a few pics just to savor the lines and the patina of this special piece.



This is Wood Talkin for today. Wood talks---how often do you listen?


                                                           Dick

A Broken Leg.. A Marvelous Old Couch

Hi Everybody. In this situation my customer called me to look at a recently recovered couch. These older pieces are often very well built inside and outside. They often incorporate a quality of materials and workmanship that puts much of todays similarly priced items to shame. This one is a great case in point. The internal quality of this older couch is well worth the cost of a repair, and it will give the family another 20 years of flawless service.

What you see (left) are two pictures of the couch's right front leg socket. I've peeled back the upholstery and its foundation fabric in order to get to the joint area, and then I will try to see what has happened.

Here, in the picture (left) I've cleaned out all the shattered material in preparation to fabricate and place a solid new oak seat for the leg in that spot. The leg of the couch will then be secured--re-glued and multiply screwed--into this new oak seat. As you can see in the picture, two dowel tenons from the couch's arm structure will also secure into the new oak seat, AND I will be re-securing the dowels
--those 4-round circles that I had to cut--back into the new oak seat too (see the pic). As you can see, the new piece's placement, (I'm sorry it's not shown) will support the structural integrity (rigidity) of the corner at the floor and from the couch's arm above.

Yes, it was all very much worth the effort. My customer was very happy--and then so was I!

That's Wood Talkin. Take care of your pieces---cuz they all have some fun stories to tell!