1870 s Victorian Chair Restoration Part 2

Both of these side rails have been broken and scabbed in and just not worth saving. So I made up some cardboard templates, called on one of my woodworking friends. He had a perfect block of hickory that we made some rough outs. I've got them sanded and ready for veneer. Along with making cardboard templates to lay out the profile on these side rails. I've also laid out templates for the layout on the veneer facing. I like this curly grain here. Most of this panel on the front is going to be covered with our burled olive ash. So I'm going to start by laying it out and working with this grain line across here. For my center decoration, I've got some burled olive ash that I'm going to bookmatch these pieces. There'll be a small seam down the center, but this is a beautiful piece of wood. Rough it out here and trim some of the excess. I squared up the two pieces of burl and some blocks of walnut and sanded them down to where there's a nice flush surface and they're made up together. I need to tape them in place. Instead of a true bookmatch, I decided that I really like this grain lined up in an opposing fashion. It's got a nice swirl in here. On the front side, I'm going to start by lining these up. I'll put some masking tape on there to hold them. Then on the back side, to reinforce this as we're working with it, I put a paper veneer tape down. It keeps things from chipping out and holds it together. This tape is basically a hide glue base that dissolves with water. I use this a lot of times when I'm holding seams together. In this case, I'm holding a seam and we're going to reinforce the wood. Okay, all right, that came out pretty good. I'm using animal hide glutes. It has to be melted down in a hot pot. I make it a little bit runnier than normal when I'm doing veneer work. I have to work quickly with it because it is, you work with it hot. Okay, I'll line these up. I'll use this roller here and work with it a little bit. It sets up pretty quickly. Okay, I'm going to put a piece of tape on that end there, the end. Hold it down and maybe one through the center here. I've got my iron temperature set very low. I'm going to go over it in little sections at a time and reheat this glue a little bit. It doesn't hurt to rub it in really good with the roller. Then I'm going to clamp it down with a piece of masking tape and just keep working along down the end. I've let the glue harden out and given it a few hours to cure. I'm going to peel the tape away and check these veneer edges and do a little light sanding. I'll start sanding by breaking down these edges on the veneer. I have to be careful so they don't splinter. I'm using some 150 grit paper and working back against the frame rail there. I need to cut these ends back a little bit so they don't chip away. With a hardwood block and some 120 grit paper, I work with it and even out this surface. Take the dull areas out and just kind of work it down to where it's all smooth. I've left the rails overnight to make sure that the glue gets really good and cured out hard. I need to run these through the router and cut in a tack line here. I'm going to use some masking tape on it and try to reduce any splintering and chipping from the router bit. I'm going to use some 220 paper and just lightly dress this fresh cut here and we'll be able to glue down our applique. I've wrapped a piece of cardboard with some packaging tape and use this to clamp this down with. The packaging tape won't let any glue squeeze out in here. Clamp this down and leave it for a couple hours or so. With the masking tape adhesive that has been pressed into the wood by the clamp, I'm using some naptha and scrubbing with it and it takes away that residue. I've polished down this burled ash and I'm very tempted to see what a teaser of naptha will do. Beautiful, beautiful. I couldn't be more pleased with the way this veneer facing has come out. The seam is flawless, the pattern flows really nice. Overall, I'm happy to have these done.