Table Repair Project Update 1....well taking a gamble here on how best to do this repair....but it starts with rough cutting out the broken material on the dovetail hinges and 1st pic shows that using a dovetail saw to do the work. Didnt come out as clean a cut as I wanted, so required lot of hand-filing to reduce surfaces to bonding standard and 2nd pic shows the ready to repair area. Didnt have any walnut around...but did have Brazilian rosewood (used for guitar fret-boards among other things), so....thought...why not....not a point in table that has main visual perspective, so doesnt matter if wood matches exactly. 3rd pic shows the repair piece of rosewood bonded to the prepared surfaces of the broken dovetail hinge extensions from swing leg. 4th pic shows the reverse view of underside. Ya....used a white-based epoxy as the glue to bond and fill minute gaps in surface space...but it PC-11 epoxy which is standard for marine-based repairs to boats and such. Figured it would provide the strongest and most resilient bond for repair....and because the area of repair in area not visible to the casual observer...opted to go with it...despite its ability to accept stain. I can get around that not stain-able issue by staining surrounding wood...then using a colored varnish to touch-up and blend it as best can be to the original surface condition. Well...at least I am hoping to. I am taking this project by feel and just going with whatever available and seems reasonable approach. And in the past...seems the end result turns out quite nice. Stay tuned...next step is to cut-out that block of wood with a dovetail saw and reform the base dovetail joint...then file and sand it even so it mates with the table joint....then drill the hole through the two dovetail extensions that mate with the holes in the side-frame of main table. Will post more when those stages complete. When I was a Resource Manager and Land Management Program Coordinator at Forest Preserve District of Will County, restoration was a word and concept that was frequently cited...but I knew back then...even more later...that nature cannot be restored to anything...because nature works on its own terms that extend beyond human manipulations. And as such...I came to the conclusion that the best I could do or be....was a caretaker...a gardener in the garden of nature. But...paintings can be restored...and so can a broken curlew or some old walnut drop-leaf/swing-out leg table. I am a restorer of things broken...but nature...I can only garden in, or dick-with as I like to say at times...other times...Gardening in the Garden of the Gods....but fixing a strand of carved elephants with missing tusks, a wooden curlew with broken neck/head and beak, and an old walnut table...now that is restoration.
Posted on: Thu, 21 Nov 2013 03:01:19 +0000
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