African Mahogany Antique Rocker

Here's a really fun and amazing story.  I really love this! 

My customer brought her marvelous old rocker to the shop for repair. (Sorry, no pic)

But I wiIl use what I'll call a "pic narrative" to help me tell this story. 

The initial goal was to reglue the right broken leg and then generally stabilize the chair's joints. Then we'd recover the chair seat. However, when I got a really good look at the break and it's relationship to other vital joints in the immediate area,  I knew we had an even bigger problem.  Three joints were located in very close proximity within that same structural area.  The break was compromised by past multiple repairs in the same area. The leg's present break, and this repair, promised to fracture the integrity of all three joints! Ugh. That won't work.  We needed a Plan B. 

Plan B required my taking the front of the chair apart. It meant replacing the broken leg-arm and fabricating a new one from contemporary African Mahogany wood...a "do over." We'd use the existing leg-arm as a pattern and start from scratch. One looming question persisted: Because this chair was hand-made @1860 could we get the new wood to look like the original? Hmmm. We'll need to wait and see, but I was reasonably confident. 😊 👍 

My customer trusted me.

So the process began. I removed the fabric from around the perimeter of the seat.  Wow, you can (enlarge the

so you can) see the battered tack strip securing the velvet fabric. It's been re-upholstered at least five times through the past 140 years! 

Then I worked to separate the leg-arm assembly from the frame.

And I pulled the leg free from the chair arm and began to use it as our pattern for its now-to-be-fabricated replacement. 

The new leg is taking shape. Multiple "dry fits" of the new leg gradually affirmed its fit, and clarified the appropriate hole positions and alignment with other critical joint connections. Yaaay!

Finally I glued the new leg into place and also glued the arm back onto place. Then I clamped it all securely for 12-hours. Yaaay yaaay!

Will the new wood look like the old wood? I sanded and prepped and then re-stained the entire chair front area.

 Then I carefully hand stripped the entire chair and re-stained it all so all the patina promised to match. It looked so good! The next step...re-upholstery. Wow 👌.  So pretty. 

My customer graciously forwarded this pic of her great grandmother (1865) seen here as a child standing next to her mother (left side). Mom is seated in this marvelous OLD rocker.  It's wow wow wow stuff!

And that's why I call this special... the amazing stories these precious pieces can tell.

So, that's WoodTalkin.  Are you listening?

Happy New Year 2022 everybody!

Dick Brandow

720.350.2992 cell & text

One of Twelve...?

Wow, this is a marvelous old chair. It arrived at the shop for complete restoration, and with a very notable pedigree. It is one of the original jury chairs made for the Fairplay, CO, Courthouse. The facility was built in 1874, two years before Colorado became a state in 1876. So, this old gentleman could rehearse some scintillating courtroom dramas, if only, yes if only.

It's a BIG  solid oak chair. It was made to seat the big and the tall, the little and short, and then everyone in between.  And it's structurally superior, too. It stands a full four feet off the floor at the top.  It's constructed in three main pieces: the leg and bottom frame structure; a separate mid-frame "gasket" that stabilizes the leg and bottom leg structure and connects it to the upper seat structure; and the upper seat structure which includes the seat,  the chair's arms and the lathe-turned spindles and upper yoke...a wonderful old chair.

The restoration process required that it be taken almost  completely apart. There were few joints that were not loose after 140 years (--and of course if you're active and over 40 you know first hand what that's about). Then the joints were all cleaned and reglued in the reassembly process. The old finish was stripped,  cleaned,  and sanded in preparation for new stain and three coats of finish. 

Oh,  and one more thing. Below the arms and securing the arms "return" to the seat are metal fittings.  These were repainted with the bright gold that matched it's original finish.  You can see this if you look closely at one of  the final pics.  Such a handsome old gentleman!

This final pic (above) celebrates it's presence in my customer's living room... happily home at last.

That's Woodtalkin for today.  If you have pieces that need some help... call me.  I'll listen.

Just a Before & After

Sometimes it's fun and maybe even helpful to gloat just a little.  This very practical piece,  a closed dresser,  is of 1920's-1930's vintage.

It's one of several pieces,  one piece of a bedroom suite  I was privileged to refinish.  It had been well taken care of through just a couple owners,  including the years my customer has had it. And just like the rest of us,  stuff gets tired and begins to need some cosmetic--and even structural help. 

This piece's structural issues were my biggest challenge.  Several of the wooden drawer slides inside the case were "done." They were broken, and parts of them were even long lost.  Making those functional repairs required some care and some ingenuity. But it was doable and the final product is a happy outcome for everyone involved. 

The pictures I've posted here give you some idea what the piece looked like fully stripped, and then when it's all finished before all the doors are hardware are replaced, and then finally it's all back together.  Please notice the two little decorative pieces, one on the top's "fence" and the other on the first middle drawer. 

Check out the pulls on the drawers,  right and left,  and on the two doors.

These pulls are solid silver! That was a surprise to me,  but even more so to my customer.  When she acquired the piece many years ago they were already tarnished,  so she had no idea they were anything more than dark grey. When I polished then up and showed them to her, wow,  was she  surprised...and delighted! It was a feels-good moment for us both. 

Ok,  about those two decorative pieces. These two were made of oven-baked moulded resin. I couldn't find exact replicas,  so we left these (for now) just as you see them there,  cleaned and finished.  But,  and just for your information,  facsimiles are available. 

Ok.  That's WoodTalkin for today.  Keep listening, and remember,  your pieces have stories to tell!

Monday's Update.

I'm back in the shop starting TODAY.  YAAY!

And that's today's WOODTALKIN. See you soon. 

Dick 👍👍

720-350-2992

Post Surgery Update

Hi,
Welcome to WoodTalkin.

Here's a fun little Limerick that explains what's going on for me and the shop right now: 

"Patience is a virtue. Possess it if you can. Seldom found in women, but never found in man."

 The first week in September I had surgery on my left thumb. It  repaired a painful bone-on-bone joint. Then I awkwardly worked through the fall completing customer's projects right up until Thanksgiving.  The 1st week in December I had the same surgery performed on my right thumb--my dominant hand. Now,  with both hands at less then 60%, just tying my shoes has become a whole lot harder!

I haven't been able to get back in the shop to get things going again---yet.  But I'm evaluating my progress week-to-week and daily.... impatiently.  Don't hesitate to call me! I can come to your home,  do estimates, and we can discuss costs and options for the projects you might want me to tackle. I'll put your project on the jobs board and into the work que. Then we'll be ready to go as soon as I get the anticipated double Thumbs Up. Yaay👍👍.

Thanks for your patience!

Dick Brandow

-350-2992

A Hand Carved Hickory High Chair

Check out this little high chair.   It's completely handmade--hand carved out of Hickory branches! It is a really fun story,  and it's a fun story to re-tell.

As you may know already,  the business name,  WoodTalkin, was chosen because of the stories pieces, like this little chair's, whisper to us. And they deserve to be listened to.  So bend your ear this direction for just a minute.

 My customer brought this little chair in the door and described how it had been in his family for several generations.  He didn't know who originally fabricated it--perhaps a great grandfather. The issue for them at this particular point in time--the reason he brought it to the shop--was because it was really rickety, unsafe for a child to sit in.  So he asked me to make it safe again.

 Well, as you may know, literally everything I do in the shop boils down to time and materials for work done. And this little chair was going to be a project requiring complete disassembly in order to clean and re-glue all the joints.  That appeared initially an easy enough task to accomplish, and in a reasonable amount of time.  Well so much for 1st blush conclusions.  When I began the task to disconnect the joints and pull the chair apart, I realized all the joints had been pinned with tiny nails. Ugh!

These were "wire nails"--production made.  People began using wire nails--slowly graduating from the use of blacksmith-made steel nails--in the late 1800s. Then they gradually replaced hand made steel nails in the United States and Great Britain.

 I had to carefully locate the nailhead(s) in each joint, dig that little nail head out of its position--enough so that at least I could grab it and pull it out--and then move to the next joint.  And I soon discovered some of the joints had several  embedded nails. So,  I needed to get back on the phone with my customer to let him know how and why  this effort was going to take longer and cost more than any of us had anticipated.  (Ongoing customer collaboration is key to good customer relationships!)

 Having to dig all these little details out of these joints left some nasty scars on the chair (look closely). Each of these little holes then had to be filled and then re-stained to match the surrounding patina, or blend it to compliment it.

 When I was able to start pulling the joints apart, I concluded this wasn't the 1st time these little joints had been re-glued. The glue in these joints was not in every case the old glue one would expect to find in a chair made in the late 1880s.  Some of the joints  appeared to have the old glue, but others were sporting glue contemporary of the past 35 or 40 years. Hmmm. So the chair's joints were probably  "pinned" together in a previous re-glue effort. In fact, the finish  was also unmistakably contemporary. This sweet hand-made highchair had been re-glued and and refinished at some point in the comparatively recent past.

 One of the handmade spindles fitting into the yoke of the seat's back was badly deteriorated. With antiques I don't re-make a spindle and put it in place with the old ones. So,  I removed the spindle from the yoke and cut off the portion that was damaged beyond repair. I placed a new piece of Hickory into the spindle,  glued and shaped it to accommodate both the figure and fit, and reintroduced it into this beautiful hand-carved yoke medly .  Then it was time to re-glue all the pieces and the chair back together. Wow, fun stuff!  

Such a fun little piece.  My customer was happy.  This little beauty is going back home to grand kids. I'm happy!

That's WoodTalkin for today. Thanks for listening. Merry Christmas!

Dick

A Sendipitous Acquisition!

This little vanity desk is just one piece of a bedroom suite.
Hi Everyone! In a past several months, I had the privilege to refinish all the suite's pieces except a headboard and a footboard. My customer reported how he acquired the pieces from a distant family member who initially purchased them second-hand, used them for a while, and then gave them to him.




attractive little vanity desk

I was first introduced to these in my customer's garage--each waiting for some needed attention. I could see he had some keepers (click here)! It was clear to me these were good quality pieces of furniture, but that's a kind of observation my customers can't necessarily  make. They don't get to see the variety in styles and construction I routinely work with in the WoodTalkin shop. So, it was my privilege to help him make some observations about each item, and those ramped up his appreciation for what he had serendipitously acquired.

nasty stain

A two-drawer bedside table (with a nasty stain in the top), a dresser, a vanity chair, and a small desk chair. For the most part all of these pieces were in reasonably good condition, considering their age. They had no structural problems, warps, or veneer losses. The bedside table had a broken toe on a back leg and the vanity had a similar toe insult. All the pieces were original finish, except the vanity. It had been painted white, so trying to get all the paint out of the vanity, replacing the veneer on the side table's top, and fabricating two new toes were probably the biggest challenges.

refabricated ear

My customer planned to self-replace the upholstered back on the vanity's chair. So, my goal with that piece was to support her effort. I refinished the chair and replaced its broken right "ear" (see pic, right) on the back of the chair so she could expertly upholster up to and around it.  

So, here are a few pics of the finished items--all happily ready to go home.


front to back: vanity chair, desk chair, and bedside table



seven-drawer dresser



The pieces are finished in a Matt luster and in a stain chosen by my customer. As mentioned above, they plan to reupholster the vanity's chair and also the seat cover on the desk chair. 

pretty little vanity and a new toe

The vanity has really pretty original antique brass pulls--but they are not shown in this pic. (I forgot to get that pic.) If you look really carefully you can see the back left foot of the vanity--it's no longer missing. So, there you go, a really fun project that reinvigorates this little bedroom suite for another generation. (Don't you wish we could all do that for one another!)

That's Wood Talkin for today. Furniture has a story to tell--so let's pay attention. Call me or text me for free in-home estimates, trouble-shooting, or some fun discussion.

Dick Brandow

720-3450-2992 cell/text