Unstuffing the chair

I thought work would never end yesterday. It finally did around eight thirty at night and I got to spend a whopping fifteen minutes in the shop before I had to get ready for bed. So I started de-stuffing this chair.

I set it up on the bench and pulled out the tufts of material. I set up two bags. One for the horsehair/wood stuffing and one for the cotton batting. After most was out of the bottom I tried to do some fabric removal. Turns out (a lesson I have learned before and forgot) the antique tacks are really stubborn. None of my regular nail pullers worked well. I try not to have lots of specialty tools but I need a tack puller or this will take forever. Some of them are rusty and the heads pooped off so I had to grab them with pliers.

With the fabric removed it became clear that the fabric that wrapped around the stretcher did not originally do so.  More wood was exposed in the original upholstery. You can see the line where the tacks where that became exposed when I removed the fabric. 

Unlike the fabric wrapping down to be tacked as it was when I got the chair here is how the line would have looked using the original tack line. More of the beautiful wood would have been exposed, I think this will improve the lines of the chair as well. 

Here is another view. Had the original lines been used the piece would have had a lighter look than it does. plus the nice finished wood would have been exposed rather than covered up. 

Caster (castor) detail. 

Bag of Cotton Batting. It filled up about half as fast as the stuffing so they are roughly in a 2/1 ratio. 

\

On the bench ready for stuffing removal

Bathroom scale

I liked the look (but not the price) of this old bathroom scale.

Unpacking the chair box

Unpacking the chair box was a lesson in furniture forensics. I laid out all the pieces and realised that it was actually two different chairs.  An Eastlake chair and a Lincoln Rocker.  The Eastlake is in terrible shape. Pieces don't match, wood putty everywhere, someone has used four different dowel sizes to start the repairs. I tried to figure it out and could not. I am not sure that anything can be done for it.  The Lincoln rocker is another story. All the major parts save one are there. A few pieces need major repair and some remanufacture. My major problem, it was cane. I have never done this type of work. I am not sure I could. Plus it would take a significant investment on my part to do it and I am not sure I could cover my cost on resale.  It is not a type of chair that I have always wanted so I am not sure that I would want to keep it. I did however knock it together so I could see it complete. I held it together with clamps. You can never have too many clamps. 

The pictures would be more dramatic and show the process if they were in order but they are not so whatever. 

Part of the Eastlake. 

Eastlake detail

The top of the Lincoln Rocker

The Lincoln Rocker knocked together. The good news with this one is that the rockers are in good shape even though they are two different widths. Perhaps it will rock in a circle because of this? 

Starting to put the pieces together. Sorry the pictures are low quality. The light in the shop is not exactly great for photos at night. 

The box o'chairs including the bucket of small parts. 

The small parts included the castors and some blocks for rails. You can also see the top rail of the Eastlake in this picture. The Eastlake has front castors but not back castors. 

Laying all the parts out. Here you can see the Eastlake legs and the Lincoln Rocker Arms. The board in the front is a piece of 'new' wood that was in the box. There was also a broken spindle and some wood with a lots of nails in it that I never figured out where it went. 

That back splat that is white does not belong there but was placed there as a replacement. A new one would have to be made. It would also have to be drilled for cane. Also here you can see that the left hand side where cane would be threader is missing that would have to be made as well. The right hand side is about 7/8ths  there. Part of it would have to be made. There are some upholstered Lincoln Rockers and that may be a way to avoid tedious remanufacture and caning. 

More parts laid out including the nail boards that seem to go with nothing and the jute rope attached to them. I was lucky that all the spindles were there for the Lincoln Rocker because I don't have a lathe. 

The Lincoln Rocker chair seat. And the stupid white splat someone put in there. 

The origional box of chair parts. 

(Free and) Easy Chair

So I am not sure what to call this type of chair exactly.  I tend to stay away from upholstered furniture unless it's in very good condition because I don't really have any experience doing upholstery. I have done a little but not too much and nothing very complicated.  I love the castors on this piece and the way the back sweeps out. But the condition is rough. The good news? The frame seems to be in good condition. That should give me a good chance to practice upholstery without also worrying about woodwork. I am going to tackle this project next so look for updates in the future.  I fear that for a free chair that it may cost me a bit to complete. I mean fabric does not grow on trees nor does horse hair for stuffing. I will try to reuse everything I can and make up for the rest. Luckily I have some webbing sitting around that I bought at auction for just such an occasion. 

Love those Legs

I mean this back goes WAY back. 

Undercarriage explosion

The back. I wish I could reuse this fabric but some cat got to it and just shredded it. Plus its pretty worn in the front.

Implosion 

A little detail on the front. 

More chairs

So Sunday I went back to the estate sale to see what they had left. Sunday or whatever the last day of the sale is tends to be half priced day around here. This means that there is less stock but cheaper prices. I find a good strategy is to buy what you want desperately at full price and then return to get other stock that you might otherwise pass on. So along with the child's rocker they had a box of chair parts and an easy chair in pretty rough shape. I was considering purchasing them at a price that would have totalled 10 dollars when the sale manager came out to  pack some things up before the end of the day. We got to talking about restoration and I told her about the child's rocker I picked up yesterday and showed her some pictures on my phone. She was tickled that I was working on it and rather than sell me the chairs or throw them away at the end of the sale she told me to just take them home and see what I could do. I asked what was in the box of parts and she said it was a Lincoln Rocker. I thought it looked like an eastlake chair but she would know better. Turns out we were both right.

Box'O Chair

More Box'O Chair

Sitting Chair

Child's rocking chair Part 1

Saturday morning I went to an estate sale. This child's rocker was in a box and four dollars. I hemmed and hawed about the issue and finally bought it. One of the rockers was split. I figured that I could repair it. Rockers are tricky to repair but they are not the worst thing in the world. When I got it home and started inspecting the joint I realized that it had split because the wood was worm eaten and soft. You could lift the piece and a fine wood dust would fall out. I decided that this would take two pins one from the top and one from the bottom. Because the wood was delicate I decided to use the hand drill. I then drilled out and pegged my break. It was then that I realized that if my break was fixed I would have a hard time fitting in my stretcher. So I stopped and prepared the whole piece for glue up. Then two hours later I had the whole buisness clamped up. It was a good time to quit because I had to get ready to go to work at the auction.

This is the chair seat "in the black" 

This is the fracture on the rocker. That is also my hand drill. I only managed to crush a little finger skin in it this time. Also in this picture is an antique hand c-clamp I picked up a few years ago. My workbench is an old sink vanity set I pulled out of a rubbish tip seven years ago. 

Another view of the seat. I am lucky that nothing on it needed repair. The arms appear to be hand carved.  

This is the broken rocker in the vise ready to be drilled. The pins worked pretty well but I still thought the joint was too weak. 

This is the start of the glue up. 

In this picture you can see the rot. I stabilised the wood, but its pretty weak here. You can see the worm holes in this picture as well. This oak dowel is proud and later I cut it down with my flush cut saw. 

Here is the whole child's rocker after reassembly and glue up. I let it sit here for several hours so the glue could set. 

This picture is out of order, but here are some stretchers. I ended up pulling them all apart so I could re-glue the joints. 

This picture shows the other side of the rocker in the vise. The next step was to drill it out to insert a pin. 

What a busy weekend

I always see little books like this. It is an area where I need to do more research. I know nothing about them. I also like the homoerotic connotations of the title. I see this sort of stuff all over. If I had the time i would make a blog called homoerotic antiques.