August 25, 20169 yr Awhile back a customer of mine asked me if I could restore, or do a complete makeover of a settee he purchased off of eBay. The settee was from the early 1800's and he wanted the entire piece stripped, gone through, new rails fabricated, and various repairs. The settee had gone through a life of abuse, and it ended up with a thousand holes in it, upholstered with some gosh awful tweed fabric, actually layers of upholstery ended up on it, and long story short, it was a mess, and he wanted a new settee. About the only thing he really liked on it, were the legs, and the beautiful curled maple they were made from. Later I will show a photo montage of the entire project, but this story is about how I repaired a seemingly destroyed balled foot. My customer wanted me to just cut it off, and make all the legs the same size, I told him I could save it. The image below is how the foot looked when I received the settee in my shop. As you can see there was hole in the center of the foot, that was to accommodate casters that were on all four legs. The hole for the casters weakened the ball foot and it finally gave way, cracked and just sheared off. The next image is after I stripped down the entire settee, and started in on the refinishing process. I know I know! That lovely patina, gone! It tore me up to sand it out, and take the project down to bare wood again, but hey, I was getting paid to do a job. So at first look, it does look dismal, but I knew there was hope for this leg, I could save it! I've seen worse! So I set about to paring away at the damaged wood with my Marples chisel, I was not worried about shaping the leg repair to be a perfect 90 degrees to accept the repair block, because I knew I had a trick up my sleeve to make the final fit, just perfect. I pared away at the ball foot just so the repair block fit reasonably well. I used Maple, and I tried to get a good matching grain orientation as you'll see in the images below. The trick here is once you get the fit close, use a piece of sand paper to bring the fit to final. Do not fold the paper in half, this will only distort both sides of the fit as you pull the sandpaper out from between the repair block and the piece to be repaired. Each time you must insert the sandpaper in between the two pieces, then as you apply pressure to the repair block, pull the sand paper out. After time, and with a bit of patience, the sandpaper will have created a custom perfect fit including matching any valleys or highs, or uneven shaping of the repair area. The repair block will conform to the odd shape of the piece to be repaired. Keep inserting the sand paper, then pull out, over and over. The fit will materialize. And you'll have a perfect fitting repair block. Finally, time to glue up the repair block. After the glue set up, I then commenced to paring away at the repair block to rough it in close. My Marple 1" chisel worked beautifully for this task. I almost have her ready for final shaping. After I got it close, I shaped the repair block down to match the existing ball with shoulder as well. note the grain orientation. To bring the repair block to final shape, I used a file and then I blended the repair in with 220 sand paper, and it turned out pretty close to the original shape. This was a successful repair, it took all of an hour to get it all wrapped up, and we got to save the other three legs, remember the customer originally said to just cut this leg down and the rest as well to match, I would not! Later I'll show some images of the final restoration, you cannot even see this repair, it looked splendid after all was said and done. Cheers!
August 25, 20169 yr splendid it is... your sandpaper fitting is a tip well worth remembering... thanks...
August 25, 20169 yr That's a nice repair, it's great to save as much of the original as possible, always my first priority. Are you still stripping and refinishing? I still like to do repairs but just not interested in stripping anymore. Steve
August 25, 20169 yr I sure would have guessed that to take more than an hour...I can see me spending all day on it. Nice job, tuned out great!
August 25, 20169 yr Author 5 hours ago, Stick486 said: splendid it is... your sandpaper fitting is a tip well worth remembering... thanks... I use the sand paper fit for chair joints too Stick, here is one of my chairs with a perfect joint, the sand paper works really well for the final fit. You can see the "chair arm" to "back leg transition" is nice and tight, it works for any project you need a close eye candy fit.
August 25, 20169 yr Author 19 minutes ago, Steve Krumanaker said: That's a nice repair, it's great to save as much of the original as possible, always my first priority. Are you still stripping and refinishing? I still like to do repairs but just not interested in stripping anymore. Steve Steve, actually I don't like it! Stripping, not my thing, but I do enjoy repairs. I'll avoid refinishing like the plague especially if it involves matching existing finishes. I am a horrible color matcher, it's one of those talents I do not possess. But again, I'll repair anything any day, I love that challenge. The only reason stripping and refinishing did not bother me on this work/job, is because it involved the total disassembly of the settee, and I was able to rebuild about 70 percent of the settee along with completely stripping the arms and legs, so it was actually more fun than work on this one. A plethora of disciplines were needed and I like that.
August 25, 20169 yr Author 22 minutes ago, Fred W. Hargis, Jr said: I sure would have guessed that to take more than an hour...I can see me spending all day on it. Nice job, tuned out great! Thanks Fred!
August 25, 20169 yr John, excellent repair and the sand paper tip is great. I'm sure I will use it in the future. Thanks for showing. Dan
August 25, 20169 yr Beautiful job, John. I've learned my tip for the day, thanks. What grit did you start/finish with to get the match? Bill
August 25, 20169 yr I like the sand paper fit tip, John! I guess the final shaping could h\also have been done on a lathe?
August 25, 20169 yr That is some really great work. I know it would have taken me way more than an hour to do all of that.
August 25, 20169 yr Wonderful repair there John. I'm puzzled though on how the sandpaper helps. I guess I would have to see it done in order to "get it". Now if you were using the paper as a filler for the joint, I could understand it, but you said you pulled it out each time...
August 25, 20169 yr Really a great repair job. The step by step pictures were a big help in grasping the concepts. Especially, the sandpaper fitting tip. That one goes in the memory bank.
August 25, 20169 yr Charles, Placing the sandpaper between the two pieces and holding them together telegraphs every wave and dip on the non abrasive side to the opposite side. When you pull the paper out it abrades the abrasive side to mirror the opposite side. Liken it to scribing a counter top to a wall only instead of cutting the excess material off at the scribe line you are sanding it. Hope that helps. Bill
August 25, 20169 yr Either I missed it, or you didn't say, but what grit paper do you use? Or, do you use multiple grits as you get closer to the final "fit"?
August 25, 20169 yr 1 hour ago, schnewj said: Charles, Placing the sandpaper between the two pieces and holding them together telegraphs every wave and dip on the non abrasive side to the opposite side. When you pull the paper out it abrades the abrasive side to mirror the opposite side. Liken it to scribing a counter top to a wall only instead of cutting the excess material off at the scribe line you are sanding it. Hope that helps. Bill Unfortunately, not really, If you were to leave the paper there to fill voids in the wood between the two pieces, that would make sense to me, but I guess I am just not grasping the concept here.
August 25, 20169 yr Author Charles, when I get in tonight I'll try to explain further. I may have some more images that could help.
August 25, 20169 yr Author 4 hours ago, Chips N Dust said: Either I missed it, or you didn't say, but what grit paper do you use? Or, do you use multiple grits as you get closer to the final "fit"? Depends how rough the fit is Chips. If I have a way to go I'll start off with 180 and then to 220. The reason why I don't use a lower grit, it's nearly impossible to pull 80 or 100 grit out of the sandwiched pieces with any effective pressure applied. Also, remember when you pull the sandpaper away and out, always pull the paper bending away from the repair block. That way you do not accidentally round over the repair block, leaving an unsightly gap at the joint. This is also another reason you don't double the paper to have both sides abrasive, or you risk rounding one an edge as you pull out the paper. Also, you can flip the paper over and work the other side as well, this method will bring both surfaces into compliance with each other quicker.
August 27, 20169 yr Author On 8/25/2016 at 11:24 AM, John Morris said: Charles, when I get in tonight I'll try to explain further. I may have some more images that could help. Charles, I have not forgotten you! Just got racked up in "stuff"! Let me come back and I think I have a way to clarify this, perhaps with a video. It's important you get this tip, you'll be able to use it!
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