A little love goes a long way

hi guys it's turning at john's furniture repair here starting another uh small project in the shop and it's this little stool here a little roxton style stool with the woven seat and it's pretty wobbly and someone's done some repairs and put some giant screws in here to hold the seat tightly on so it's going to be a collaboration between me and my friend who does some weaving so first of all i need to get this thing apart and get it all sturdy for her so let's get at it okay so the first thing you need to do is get these plugs out and there were only two in the chair um and the other two were glued in which these are never supposed to be glued in um so i had to actually drill these guys out so we'll just be replacing these um these guys so someone has gone in there and put in giant number 10 screws and they're just probably you know the attachment point in here is really worn out so let's get these off first and see what we got to work with here [Music] i mean it's not too too large i mean if it's uh was doing its job i wouldn't disagree with this it was always a screw but um we'll just see if that was actually necessary in the first place and that one is completely missing or broken off it looks like it may be broken off in there so that's not gonna help this one's not even screwed in all the way and it's a different screw all together so let's grab the number two and last one over here it's a bunch of glue in that one as well so i'll use my number two and it's just spinning okay so lucky me opposite corners we got one that won't come out and one that's broken could be two together so we'll have to uh work this guy out anyways there we go tenth times the charm yes this is just jammed up behind um they had sunk the screw too deep for one but um and it was unthreaded out there so if you can get something like a putty knife or something to grab those threads then when you un screw it it'll actually ride your shitty pliers don't use your good ones and unthread itself along the blades of the pliers there or your putty knife whatever you can get in so we got that one out we should be able just to pop up this seat and pull out the one that's broken on the other side so yeah this guy's just broken off in the chair and that is that so i'm just going to mark where these go and uh take apart the rest of the chair okay so like happens sometimes um there's little pin nails that i did not see when i was looking at this so let's have a few repairs they're just tiny little pin nails in the joint to hold this in while it dries which they do in the factory so they don't have to clamp things so i'm just going to try to get um these guys out before um pulling the joints apart but these little pin brads just want to break usually and they don't come out nicely like old nails they're just kind of really cheap wire and uh usually just want to break you kind of end up um i mean the joint is loose but there's a nail in it and you can't get it out like what are you going to do you got to get that guy apart so if you get lucky you get them out and you keep your joint together so i'll work on getting all those nails out and uh then we can continue to take these joints apart so i'll just keep the little pieces that i've got here that need to be re-glued on so the other thing we're going to be doing for this piece is giving it a really good clean this is a roxton stool and the finish is going to be in great shape underneath because it's a baked on powder finish and so um it's just really really dirty and uh it'll clean up really nicely so we're not refinishing this stool just a really nice uh cleanup will do wonders for this guy because you can see you know like there's dirt and grime all over the legs that's everywhere milk and chocolate and ketchup and scuffs and all kinds of stuff so i'll be pulling nails ever okay so uh once you get the chair apart a little bit so you can get individual dowels uh if you cannot get to the nail which is in most cases here um the best way is to try to break that nail off inside before taking the joint out so the best way to do that is to roll it so i'm just going in a circular motion i'm not pulling up and that's going to walk this dowel in this joint and pull that nail right through and it's actually going to walk the dowel right out too if you do it long enough definitely a labor-intensive way of taking a chair apart but when you have males in every joint and you don't want to end up with million splinters that's kind of the only way you got you can see it coming up there there so i can see that that's free now i can just tap that and uh hopefully you don't have any damage so you see how that just kind of curled around the dowel it did still take this little tiny chunk out here which i will glue back in but in terms of pulling the joint out with the nail um that's a way better method but you have to be able to get off one side to do that so that's kind of tough so i'm just gonna have to hope that one side has the nail sticking out enough that i can pull it out and uh then kind of rock it out that way so just looking here at the next joints we already have one trying to split on me here um and the nail is kind of embedded so i'm gonna try to get this nail out here which is sticking out a little bit in this groove if i get lucky it's barely sticking out there you know and if these were substantial nails i could actually get a grab on them but they mostly just want to break instead of come with my pliers yep so i mean we're probably just going to end up having to break a few joints here um and do a bunch of little splinter glue ups before this goes back together because these are all loose and they have to come apart to properly be re-glued so there's no two ways around that um so yeah we're just gonna have to make a little bit of a mess which happens in this shop more than i'd like it to but we'll just have to kind of see if we can coax that joint out this one wants to come out on this side but that side's broken i can maybe grab the nail now that i can feed a little better on that side right in the middle of that break there ah got one good stuff so now i'll leave that that one in there uh so i know this will come out without breaking any more of this and i can turn that one out it'll be this joint down here that uh will not want to come out and it's actually tight but i have to get it apart for that one so we'll just hit it with the mallet and see who is moving first there we go we got movement there so a little nail pop up so i'm going to try to pull that nail before i do anything even though it's really not working out for nail polish try every time nope so let's hit it again we go we got a little bit more of it sticking out there this does not want to come so we'll just have to splinter that little piece there to get it to come out that wasn't the worst splinter but it doesn't make me very happy that i have to do it this way and there i got it out okay and then this guy i have to pull there we go so now on this joint i can twist using my twisty motion and then this one i'll do that as well to pull that nail through you can see it being sucked back into the hole there as it turns around with the dowel good you can see it just turned around there and we'll take it out i mean there's probably some very tedious ways to slowly work things out of their hole but you gotta you guys gotta remember i gotta make money at this business so getting these things apart quickly is important but i mean causing the least amount of damage also is important so i've got a brad nail in here and go got that guy out that one is free and so these two i can twist together okay so now that we got everything apart uh let's get to doing some of these repairs first before we glue the chair back together and uh then it will be all ready so i mostly have all the pieces just next to where they need to go so i'm just going to use carpenter's glue to get these guys back together when you're gluing these small chips um it might not seem significant but you do need to make sure you have um your fibers lined up and all your pressure in the right spot or else you can have all these pieces that kind of have edges and stuff sticking out and that looks kind of messy and usually they you know when they rip out in a direction if you put them back in that direction then they lay down pretty good but you know if there's a piece of a fiber that tore um and it kind of ripped in a weird way that you can't lay it back down you almost have to just cut that section off sometimes so i'm just going to check so like this piece here i need to come in this way so that these fibers that tore out of here where the nail was i'm kind of pushed back together that way it's not as easy as just kind of putting it back there you've got to do it in a direction and you want to get some glue in those fibers right on the point there where it's going to go into that section because then those will meld back together as well so i'm going to pop it in and i'm going to push it down back into the fibers there and now i can get some pressure downward and you just want to check you know around your turnings is it lining up nicely is it a little crooked do you need to give it a little tap the hammer because you really don't want uh to have to do i don't want to have to do um sanding or anything on this because we're just going to be cleaning this finish up so yeah make sure your clamps are kind of directionally located and pushing everything in the right way so i'll put that one aside and i'm just gonna pop this under while i'm drilling them out so i'm not you know gonna make the hole any bigger i just wanna make sure there's a glue chunk in there that i get rid of it or maybe some of the wood fibers from pulling the nails out are sticking up and get in the way of things [Applause] i definitely don't want to change anything about the joints there we go that's done and then the other thing i'm going to do is just clean the dowel ends i'm going to tape one of these japanese files and i'm just going to remove the old glue that's still on them all these little things that you could not do and the job would turn out fine but is your pair going to last as long as it might have if you had taken a little bit of extra time and made sure that these joints had good wood contact with the new adhesive i don't think so just like my finishes need to grab on to my dowels in the joints and the glue needs to grab on to fibers of the wood if you have a finish or it's really smooth or you've got a bunch of old loose glue chunks sitting on here your glue is going to fail and then you're going to have to be you know some parts will be really stuck and some parts will be loose and you're going to be left with kind of a half half loose half tight chairs so eventually anyways um i was debating whether to clean this before i put it together but i don't think it's gonna be that hard to do it while it's together so um i will wait on that so let's mix up a batch of epoxy um and get this thing in class okay so i've got my epoxy here just a little bit more of a thin epoxy because roxton stools uh joints are excellent so definitely don't need too much of a gap filler on this one but i still prefer epoxy so now i've got everything labeled here um you'll notice on chairs when you're gluing them together they have shadows of the stain where the cherries sit so this would have been you know in the the dip of of the round so you can kind of tell when you're putting things together i mean there's also a bottom and a top you can kind of tell that from looking at the stain powder too but if you put your you seat your dowel in you just turn it which is also good to get the glue everywhere it'll kind of seat in a spot well you'll notice there's no stain or white wood sorry no white wood showing now i've got my labels on the same side so i know that that's right but i also see on the dowel there's no white wood left showing around so i know that that's where it's supposed to go we've got number 10 here and if i notice that the dowel is a little looser in the joint i do add a little bit of extra um epoxy just you know maybe this joint got a little bit more worn out and rocking back and forth on the stool compressed the wood and the joint and just kind of over time made it a little bit loose or maybe it always was who knows great oh good to glue this together i am going to put the seat on even though i'm going to be taking it off again because to re-weave the seat it's just so much easier with this off but to glue up the chair i do want to make sure that i'm using um that i'm getting the right uh square and getting the right holes and everything and where they need to be and that's not gonna compress at the top so that when i want to put the seat back on eventually it doesn't fit there anymore so i'm just gonna put a couple of this the old screws back not gonna tighten them up just so that it's sitting here and i know that when i need to take it off and put it back on the chair hasn't been glued in a way that doesn't allow that to happen so now i'll get a bunch of clamps and i'm gonna put pressure on every [Music] now so and there we go so the seat can just sit up there loosely all right so i will let this sit overnight in clamps and then in the morning we can come in and scrub off all this grime and uh then it'll be up to my friend to come in and weave the seat so i'll see you in the morning okay so it's the next day here let's get all these clamps off there we go chairs looking good and sturdy everything is all good so i'm just gonna peel off all my little tape labels here so we can get to cleaning the stool and i'm going to use um sorry my name is escaping me right now i'm going to use card cutter to clean off all of the gunk so i'm going to get some water and just mix i have some uh crud cutter in a jug so i'll just mix a concentrate into some water and then just scrub this thing down cause i think it needs a good good clean [Music] do [Music] do [Music] [Music] do [Music] do [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] okay so now that i've got it all clean here um i'm gonna get to doing a little beeswax polish before my friend gets to working on the seat here she won't be here for a couple weeks so i can get this all ready for her [Applause] and i'm not going to take off the old seat just yet i'm going to let her do that so she can see a couple of details about it so i'm just going to be using howard's beeswax polish get on my table here and i'm going to use a gray scotch pad here and i'm just going to scrub it into all of the dowels and the turnings there are a couple of parts of this finish that are worn through so this will just kind of protect those areas not very much just a little bit give them a little bit of moisture and all the areas that we had to scrub really hard where there was paint house paint always gets all over furniture someone probably used it to sit on while cooking or stand on when they were painting a wall and trying to reach something seems like a handy size that someone would just grab but these roxton finishes are always revivable for the most part some of them are really really toast but usually on the chairs a good clean and a polish makes them last for another 20 years i think what really breaks down finishes is the oils in our hands so you notice like the backs of chairs where you would grab stuff that is where most of the finish breaks down because of all those contaminants so if you want to clean your furniture a little bit more often it might actually help the finish to stay in better shape especially in those areas to get the oils off so i'll just scrub this all up and then i'm just going to wipe off when i'm done the whole chair i'm just going to wipe it off with the ray and that will be the most that i do until the weeding's done [Music] do [Music] [Music] all right so there it is all put back together got the seat all nicely woven [Music] nice and tight looking really great got the fasteners all figured out and plugs back in there had a couple extra that i put in so yeah just a quick little fix on a nice little ruxin stool conceal all of our chipped repairs can't see any of those things so it's looking really nice and we just did the beeswax polish on this one and the finish is in great condition it's a little worn right there where you put your feet but i kind of like that look so yeah thanks for joining me on this little project guys and don't forget to like and subscribe if you are enjoying my videos and we have a ton more on the youtube page do check them out and uh if you want to buy me a coffee while i'm working in the shop there's a little link in the description that you can tap on and buy me a coffee while i work on all this stuff and just help me to be supported while i make these videos for you to enjoy all right cheers [Music] do [Music] you

Channel: John's Furniture Repair

Views: 79,221

Keywords: trena, john's furniture repair, thomas johnson, antique restoration, furniture, shop, workshop, tools, stripping, spraying, sanding, woodworking, mohawk, at restoration, veritas, stool, wobbly, chair, fix, project, weaving, weave, woven, rattan, seat

Id: eBvoHKNgbCE

Length: 34min 37sec (2077 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 02 2022