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The final two restore cures this chair wanted earlier than its inauguration into productive service life have been reinstalling it with the previous leg brackets and creating and putting in a set of new nook blocks.
The previous quarter-circle leg brackets have been initially related with the similar variety of inferior screws that I talked about earlier than. So I made a decision to switch them with stronger and longer washer head screws. I drilled the counterbore holes, utilized a dab of glue, and screwed in the screws.
A bit screwdriver T-handle like this one is a good helper when driving screws into picket components so long as you don’t over-torque the screw and break it.
The Corner Blocks
Corner blocks are important for extending the structural integrity of chairs’ joints. They span from apron to apron and forestall the tenon or dowel joints from opening up. Unfortunately, the unique nook blockers of my chair broke off, plus their grain orientation was not superb in the first place, so I made a decision to construct new ones.
Dimensioning the Corner Block
A nook block is basically a picket triangle that connects the chair’s aprons, normally with the assist of two or 4 screws. The fundamental problem in making them is figuring out and tracing the actual angle between the two aprons. As most chairs’ plan view is a trapezoid, the angle between the aprons in the entrance of the chair might be acute and people at the rear – obtuse.
Many years in the past, I constructed a jig to assist probe that angle. I designed it to look and performance alongside the drawing of a restorers’ jig that I noticed in the glorious guide about furnishings restoration by John Rodd, Repairing and Restoring Antique Furniture. John Rodd’s jig is skinny and made of steel, however the one I made has thicker picket components which, if not cautious, may skew the measurement as soon as transferring the angle to the block of wooden.
The Corner block probing jig that I constructed greater than twenty years in the past. I’ve been utilizing it efficiently, but when I needed to construct it once more, I might have made it out of steel.
You can probe for the nook block angles with a sliding bevel whose geometry permits it to dodge the leg protrusion. Alternatively, you need to use a wooden block to compensate for the protrusion and measure the angle with a typical sliding bevel.
If you don’t have a particular nook block probing jig, you may make a makeshift one by merely making ready two cardboard triangles, tucking them in opposition to the nook of the intersecting aprons, and transferring the measurement to the wooden block.
Probing for the entrance nook block will yield an acute angle.
Probing the rear block will yield an obtuse angle.
Corner Block Grain Orientation
To maximize the power of the nook block, align the grain to move from one apron to the adjoining one.
The new nook blocks are highlighted in yellow. One might be related to the proper nook and the different to the left.
the previous (and broken blocks had a subpar grain orientation.
Notice that the grain flows from one apron to the adjoining one.
I used a bullnose aircraft to scrub and clean the wooden earlier than gluing the blocks.
After connecting the nook blocks and retouching the restored areas with stain adopted by two coats of polyurethane wipe-on varnish, the chair was nearly as good as new, or on this case, new and good.
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