June brought a chair Max tried to fix before he died. Max died about a month ago. They are, were, neighbors across the cove.

 

He was the one that owned a resale store and bought most all the stuff to sale from auctions..He would bring things needing repaired and my payment was he bought all the planes and draw knives and old antiques used for woodworking at the auctions and paid me with them  for my repairing his furniture for the resale store. Now I have to start back going to auctions if I want to add to these things that ain't worth a flip.. And I do miss him also for a good friend ain't around no more.

   June said a lady the size of a vw tried to sit down in the chair at their house. I ask it it had ever been refinished. No this dining room set, we bought long ago new. It has always been in our house.

   Can't you just put a new rung in the place of the broken one. Why sure if you want to pay me to build one, two or three days labor.  Oh , I thought you could just buy one at the lumber yard for a dollar or two.....
 
The reason I asked if it had been refinished before for there is dark stain that had penetrated in a weather crack years ago which had to be done as the company was building them and the stain ran into the crack long ago if someone had not refinished it .I said someone has tried to fix it before. She said oh Max tried but didn't last long. Didn't he use any clamps. Yes some long ones with pipe. But did he put a clamp on each side of the cracked  area.. No he only used masking tape cause he didn't have any of the kind of clamps he needed... I can see some of the masking tape and started to ask you about it but you done told me before I had a chance to ask...Well anyway, fix it right. I will fix it the right way or I won't fix it at all...
There is a ton of dried glue which will keep the two areas from matching up exactly. Its a wonder a couple of 16 penny nails was not used since he didn't have any clamps. 
When someone messes with a repair then brings it to me that right there doubles the cost or the repair...

 

     This is just another reason the woodworker needs to tell people exactly what is needed before they leave your shop the first time... 

 I don't mind telling  there were three ways I use to set my charges when we lived in Lubbock when I had a repair, refinish shop. The phone numbers use to have a prefix in front of the four numbers. PH, SH, and SW. PH was in the poorer side of town, SH was the medium income people and  SW was where everybody would like to have lived but couldn't afford it....

  My wife use to tell me, you make a lot more money when you do jobs from the southwest side of town...Yes mam and there is a good reason for that......  I didn't exactly feel sorry for the poorer people but I knew they could not afford as much as the others could...

  But when it came to lawyers and preachers and I knew it before hand, forget them all together. That was two groups of people you could not make happy no matter how hard you tried.

  I know, lots of guys like to build with oak. Sure , its nice and smells okay but when 90 % of my work in the shop was refinishing and a lot of that had to be repaired... Old oak furniture old enough to be solid wood instead of veneer was the only wood that could have a weather crack the length of a 6 foot long dresser top. 
And most of the weather cracks were there from almost from the beginning of their life as a piece of furniture...The people would accept that as part of owning wood furniture but then when it was handed down four or five times someone down the line wanted those weather cracks to disappear....Oh sure a repairman could do wonders by replacing the tops and or sides but one could never get the same age and looks that that 100 year old piece of furniture had attained in all those years. 

   Nothing but oak had those terrible weather cracks........ I enjoy burning oak in the fireplace....

 

..

Well she brought it to the right guy...suspect she knew that anyway.

Sorry about the loss of your friend. Max...

Yes, though I cover all parts of town, I'd say 80% of my business comes from 3 or 4 suburbs.  New McMansion in Gableopolis => new furniture => Asian furniture => breaks

 

I had to do a warranty job for one of the (lawyer) councilmen in Cincinnati, who has since graduated to higher offices.   His first question was, "Is this going to cost me anything?"

 

Edited January 27, 20188 yr by kmealy