May 24, 20206 yr Author Adequate, and heavy-duty, staples are not the sole domain of people joining OSB together. Had to pull all these out, one at a time.
May 24, 20206 yr 9 minutes ago, kmealy said: And a very finely carved, err, cast, cabriole leg. Bad news: no way I could repair this, especially with the mounting bolts nowhere near that center post. Good news: Ashley shipped me a new one for $10. Do you believe they actually had some replacements in stock!? What is this cast out of?? Looks fibrous.
May 24, 20206 yr Author 15 minutes ago, Gunny said: What is this cast out of?? Looks fibrous. Fiberglass, I think. But I'm not an expert in that.
May 25, 20206 yr 3 hours ago, kmealy said: Had to pull all these out, one at a time. Welcome to my world! Having worked on repairs in an upholstered furniture factory, and re-covered many a piece when the automotive industry was slow, I must have pulled a million of those! One piece at a time!! Fortunately, most people use the smaller variety. John
May 25, 20206 yr 14 hours ago, kmealy said: Around here, Thursday and Friday ads have this guy SCREAMING for American Freight Furniture. Bedroom sets $599, six piece living room sets $499, THIS WEEKEND ONLY.https://www.americanfreight.com/ We have one of their stores advertising on a local channel...it really is irritating, ranks right up there wtth those stupid "Limu-Emu" (Liberty Mutual Ins.) ads. But apparently that place is really popular, they seem to be very busy.
May 25, 20206 yr Author I had to chuckle at this. Early in the video, he explains that he cleans off the old glue. It's foamed out all around. This fits right up there with the oft-heard, "My husband tried to fix this with Gorilla Glue." Hate that stuff. https://www.wwgoa.com/video/tightening-loose-tenons-013562/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=A5439&vsoid=A5439#
May 25, 20206 yr Author 12 hours ago, HARO50 said: Welcome to my world! Having worked on repairs in an upholstered furniture factory, and re-covered many a piece when the automotive industry was slow, I must have pulled a million of those! One piece at a time!! Fortunately, most people use the smaller variety. John A friend of mine who runs a custom upholstery shop has some sort of gadget that fits in a drill. You cut the fabric and insert it into this device, turn on the drill and it rolls it up and pulls out most of the staples. Unfortunately, 90% of the time I needed to pull staples to open up the piece, fix what's inside, then use the same fabric to upholster it back up, so I could not destroy the fabric. This example is not the worst. Sometimes I was convinced the guy doing it was paid by the staple. It'd take me half an hour to 45 minutes to open it up, 15 minutes to fix the inside, and 3 minutes to staple it back up.
May 25, 20206 yr Popular Post 12 minutes ago, kmealy said: I had to chuckle at this. Early in the video, he explains that he cleans off the old glue. It's foamed out all around. This fits right up there with the oft-heard, "My husband tried to fix this with Gorilla Glue." Hate that stuff. https://www.wwgoa.com/video/tightening-loose-tenons-013562/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=A5439&vsoid=A5439# Pretty cool trick. I had seen this done by my Grandfather when I worked with him as a teenager. I was the grandkid that went everywhere he did and came back filthy from doing all the odd jobs. But had cash in my pocket!!!
May 25, 20206 yr Popular Post The Morris chairs and, rifle and, pistol cases that I have upholstered are all "loose cushion". No fasteners needed. However, they also do lots of furniture upholstering and, I've not seen a staple gun in their shop. They don't do repairs, though. Next time I'm in, I'll ask.
May 25, 20206 yr Author Popular Post On 5/16/2020 at 5:27 PM, kmealy said: Haven't found the photos yet, but I got a moving claim once. Listed items included: ceramic bunny #1, ceramic bunny #2, ceramic bunny#3, fabric cat #1, fabric cat #2, and so on for two pages. When I got there, the owner told me that it was closing in on 9 months since the move and they had to file the claim during the window of claims. He opened the garage door and there were two bays of boxes that were still packed up. Still packed after 9 months!? I let go of a sigh. He said he'd pulled out all the damaged items. I photographed them for the claims form. Then he took me inside to see the rest. The Mrs. had her butt in a chair and never moved except to reach her iced tea. The inside of the house was also cluttered with all sorts of stuff everywhere. How much crap do you need sitting around??? Luckily, there was nothing that could be repaired so I didn't have to go back and clear anything away before I could work on it. Just a few of the 50+ bric-a-brac things and the "throne" Must have gotten up for iced tea.
May 25, 20206 yr Author File under: "I'll just put some poly on it." One of the reasons I've become not very fond of poly varnish. Or maybe just people who don't know how to use it. She wanted to change the sheen of her new dining table. When I got there, a full 1/4 of the top had peeled off. The rest was a mess. After much effort, scraped, stripped, sanded it down and refinished.
May 25, 20206 yr Popular Post 1 hour ago, kmealy said: File under: "I'll just put some poly on it." One of the reasons I've become not very fond of poly varnish. Or maybe just people who don't know how to use it. She wanted to change the sheen of her new dining table. When I got there, a full 1/4 of the top had peeled off. The rest was a mess. After much effort, scraped, stripped, sanded it down and refinished. She poured it on and let dry in the sun???
May 26, 20206 yr Author I didn't have the nerve to tell her that I could have changed the sheen in less than an hour with some buffing. Would have been worse if she'd tried to raise the gloss first with some Pledge. Would have been fish-eye city. Edited May 26, 20206 yr by kmealy
May 26, 20206 yr Popular Post On 5/24/2020 at 10:26 AM, Gene Howe said: We've always had hand me downs and old stuff we found at yard sales and, the like. Our decor would likely be classified as early cast offs. But, it's all very serviceable and un marred. Our bedroom set was given to us when my parents bought a new set. It's solid cherry and over 50 years old. In preparation of our move, we gave our kids two sofas we bought new. Phyl has a motorized recliner we bought new, supposedly built in SC. All our book cases, kitchen cabinets, tables and, hutches we built. Nothing matches. It's all a mishmash of styles. But, damned sturdy! Eclectic. Functional. Affordable.
May 26, 20206 yr Author On 5/24/2020 at 7:13 AM, JimM said: We accumulated the traditional items after our marriage in the early 70s. Nice china, silverware, and a few pieces of furniture. Best is a solid cherry dining table and 6 chairs from Harden in central NY. Still a beautiful set, but our son and DIL have no interest in any of it. And used furniture doesn't seem to bring anything near its value until it becomes antique. Sad to see so many people going to the Chinese "truckload sale" stuff. We do have a couple of Ashley pieces, and we were told it is USA made. Harden made some top-notch stuff. They even had their own forests that they harvested. Sadly, closed in 2018 https://www.ebohemians.com/harden-furniture/
May 26, 20206 yr 1 hour ago, kmealy said: Harden made some top-notch stuff. They even had their own forests that they harvested. Sadly, closed in 2018 https://www.ebohemians.com/harden-furniture/ Thank you for the link. Interesting read! Jim
May 26, 20206 yr Author 3 hours ago, JimM said: Thank you for the link. Interesting read! Jim It appears there is still a good secondary market for Harden stuff. When I was working on Asian stuff, I was always convinced it had a 5-7 year life. But some of my retail customers had what I called "serial decorators." They would re-do their interiors about that often.
May 27, 20206 yr That was an interesting read Keith. I was/am not familiar with the Harden name. In that same area of upstate NY there is the Stickley furniture plant. I think they also went through some tough times but seem to have found there niche.
May 27, 20206 yr Author I did some work for a "design center" here in town. One of the vendors there brought in a rep from Harden a long time ago and did a talk about the company (for the designers). I managed to sit in the back row and enjoyed the presentation.
May 28, 20206 yr Makes me wonder if my kids will want my Monitor solid cherry stuff when i go. Looking back, I should have purchased everything i wanted at Swallens back when i was single.
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