These four tired and broken chairs had been in a family for a long time. I believe they started out as chairs that were used in a grade school.
When these these chairs were brought in they needed more than new finishes. They needed major repairs, too.
It is always a nice surprise when anyone brings in real old, solid hardwood furniture, and these chairs were heavy.
What happened to the chairs
They had been stored in a place where water was pouring down on them, probably from a leaky shed roof or something. That water caused the glue joints in two of the seats to give way, and each of those seats fell into several pieces.
Epoxy and bar clamps
We reglued the seats and at least one chair frame with epoxy adhesive because it bonds well to dirty joints covered in old glue. For clamping, we used steel bar clamps that, when turned by a strong man, can exert a thousand pounds of pressure per clamp.
Then we sanded the joints smooth.
Sanding and refinishing
After that we hand sanded every surface, cleaning and removing old finishes. There was not much left of the old finishes since we sanded down to the bare wood in so many places.
Then we restored the color and applied clear coats of sanding sealer and polyurethane over that.
The result
From the finish photos you can see how grand these resurrected chairs looked! The customer was totally happy with them, and took them home for many more years of use.
