January 2026 Contest

[Michael Mathews]

For January show us pics of your repairs. If you've had furniture that's gotten broken and you've repaired it, show us! If you had some damage to some piece and you've had to fix it and refinish, show us!

This contest will end January 29. Voting will run January 30-31.

Rules:
- Must be created within the last 60 months. That's 5 years
- One submission per creator/artist per category (month). Pick one piece. If you have a set and want to show how it matches okay but you are only entering one piece. Hi-light that one piece.
- Members vote for winners so your submittal 'marketing' post should reflect quality. Limited to 3 photos and 500 words. One post per submittal.
- Any Q&A regarding a submittal should be handled by separate post, or DM/PM. Expect questions to be deleted. Separate posts do not clutter the contest thread, avoids vote biasing, and everyone can share How's It Made (Resources forum content).
- Each creator can win a contest no more than once every six months.
- In case of a tie, a judge panel will make the selection. Judges' decision is final. Judges will remain anonymous.
- Each monthly contest will have two winners, novice and experienced/journeyman/veteran/pro. Novice is defined as <3 years woodworking, cumulative. "Experienced" is all others. Submitters must indicate if they are novice; honor system applies. If you don't declare, you're an experienced woodworker.

 

[Geezermag]

I consider myself a novice, as I've been doing woodworking for right at three years anytime possible.

For my first deep dive into repair and restoration, a year ago I elected into restoring this rare Plycraft reclining lounge chair. My wife and I drove down to Charlotte and purchased this from a woman who was moving her clown school to another studio space. She was an avid mid-century furniture collector, and this sat in the lobby to the school, living a well-loved life to say the least. We talked her down a bit because it was in pretty rough shape, and I walked away with a seemingly fair deal for a pile of plywood and pleather.

We got it home and being too scared to sit in it without damaging the plywood, I dug into the guts of the chair right away in an attempt to stumble upon an easy fix to balance the thing - this did not happen. Beyond missing one of the feet and a handful of staples and rivets, the biggest issue with the chair was the loose reclining mechanism that couldn't find its balance.

I surmised that this was happening because a shear in the rear bracket caused the mechanism to come off its wooden frame, stressing and wallowing out some of the rivets. This was confirmed once I pulled the mechanism off and checked the slop in the assembly. Once I got everything torn down, I welded the frame mount back together, and tightened and peened the old rivets on an anvil (torched out section of structural I beam). Grinder and paint makes me the welder I ain't... With the dirty work done, I headed back to the finer issues on the chair. I wove and stapled in sailing fabric for the chair basket that was worn and tattered, which allowed me to plump the seat back up without losing the original molded foam cushions. Lastly, I polished up the chrome as well as I could, sanded and oiled the plywood, then cleaned an conditioned the pleather finally allowing for reassembly.

I was very pleased with the results of this project - the chair was beautiful, clean, and functional. I sat in it one time, and it went on to a new home as I traded it for a very cool Bertoia Diamond chair. Something about the journey being more important than the destination.

This project was completed in my uncles garage, my in-laws basement workshop, and the office floor of our Chapel Hill apartment. One year ago, I took delivery of an authentic, bona fide, 1970's brazillian rosewood, broken-in-half Eames lounge chair (this of course being the only way I could afford one). One month later, we closed on our fixer-upper house and the gorgeous halves of that mid century masterpiece have sat on my new office floor waiting for me to finish various garage and home projects for another go-round with lounge chair restoration.

Jon

 

[Jvsquare]

Just so there isn't a single entry... and seeking comments, if there's a better approach than what I did here. Certainly no welding involved.

I recently inherited a mission-style coat rack that had been stored in a damp basement for a long time. The feet got very wet and the finish badly damaged.

Before beginning the finish restoration I had to glue up some cracks -- you can see one in the top right.

After that I did some testing and determined that the finish was shellac, the wood white oak, and based on the color I guessed that it was probably fumed with ammonia. I tried a few coats of just amber shellac initially but it didn't quite give the right color. So I stripped that off and tried a mixture of Transtint dyes to bring it closer to a brown color.

After another coat of shellac, it was ready to go into service again.

 

[golfdad]

Great job and great post