Recreating Side Rails for a Hitchcock Chair - Thomas Johnson Antique Furniture Restoration
May 8, 2014
Tom Johnson of Thomas Johnson Antique Furniture Restoration in Gorham, Maine makes new side rails for this antique Hitchcock chair, using a matching chair's side rail for a template. Tom has been restoring furniture professionally since 1979. Visit our website at http://www.thomasjohnsonrestoration.com, call us at (207) 222-2266, or write us at [email protected]. And for those on the west coast looking for custom framing, be sure to check out Tom's daughter's shop, https://www.emcollier.com (@emcollierframes on Instagram).
I'm Tom Johnson of Thomas Johnson Antique Furniture Restoration in Gorham, Maine.
This is an antique Hitchcock type chair and on these chairs after the rush seat is done
they attach these thin wood side rails, if you will, or side pieces. And on this one,
this one's broken, this side rail is missing, so we need to make some new ones.
Okay, we have a matching chair here. This needs a repair to it, but I'm going to take off
one of its side rails to use as a template.
Before I use this as a template, let's make sure that it fits on the other chair.
Yeah, it looks fine. It's like a quarter of an inch.
You've, uh, you've got to sand until all the bandsaw marks are gone,
and by the time they're gone you're usually right down to your line and it's a pretty smooth curve.
Now I'm just going to spray these black with some black spray paint.
I'm going to use the paint itself as a sealant. I'll do the backs first.
All right, I'm ready to install my new side rails now. They just get nailed on.
I cut off the nail and chucked it in a drill so I can pre-drill.
All right, I polished this up with my beeswax polish and
got my new side rails. I think they look pretty good.