I have long been an advocate for teaching the basics of furniture conservation to woodworkers. Too often conservators hold their hard-earned techniques for repairing antique furniture tight to their chest. Often this secrecy is not due to an elitism but rather a concern that important objects of our cultural heritage are preserved in the hands of experienced individuals. While I sympathize with this desire in theory, I find that, in practice, woodworkers are going to fix old furniture with or without a professional’s help. It seems better to me to teach value assessment, preservation principals, and safe repair techniques. I've been blogging about these things for a number of years now but sometimes you just got to see this stuff in person.
Popular Woodworking has just released a video we shot a few months ago called '10 Essential Furniture Repairs'. In it, I walk through the most common situations I see day in and day out in my studio. I show the most straightforward and no-nonsense solutions I regularly use to restore antique furniture. Here's the stuff I address:
- Loose joints
- Veneer patching
- Severed round tenons
- Severed square tenons
- Broken spindles and stretchers
- Stuck drawers
- White-rings in the finish
- Sun-faded finishes
- Loose screws
- Cleaning and inpainting
If you've tackled this kind of thing before, you can appreciate the experience of others. At the risk of tooting my own horn, I do have to say that I am pleased that this information is finally available to a wide audience in a consciously accessible format. If you want to preserve furniture that is special to you, this video might be the best investment you can make. (Sorry that sounds sales-pitchy. I just honestly haven't seen this information around.) Order a copy from Popular Woodworking or watch it now on Shop Woodworking Videos. Let me know your thoughts when you watch it!