Chinese tea table resurrection

[fletty]

This Bundaberg hand sanitizer. Is it to be taken internally or externally"?
Pete

Im not good at reading instructions so I’ve decided to spread it on my hands and then lick it off?

[fletty]

It’s pimply sissing down here and I can’t hear myself think in my corrugated iron shed so its time to go up to the house for a coffee. I had planned on trying to keep the bulk of the timber from the table top frame and had a couple of strategies....

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.... but having now got the table top off I have to settle for the fact that it ain’t gunna happen!
I had to lever the table top away from the frame because that is often the only way to find the pins that hold it all together. Having found them, my usual method is to drill into the pin and use a screw and claw hammer to get it out.

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Having extracted 4 pins ......

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...... I ‘tapped’ the top off ......

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......only to find that some reprehensible human being had driven in a couple of nails which caused a bit of damage and certainly put paid to any idea of reusing the original top frame. I might be able to put new top and bottom faces on the frame but...

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[woodhutt]

Oh dear! Is the edge banding at least recoverable? It doesn't look too bad from the photos. Pete

[fletty]

Oh dear! Is the edge banding at least recoverable? It doesn't look too bad from the photos. Pete

I fear the entire top frame is beyond resurrection. I’d say the table has been out in the weather for a long time and water has seeped into all of the fine joinery and quietly rotted it away. Putting panel beaters bog into the holes just sealed the water in.

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The frame immediately under the table top is in pretty good nick though. I’ll make a new top frame using traditional through tenons, place it onto the frame, mark the location of the 4 corner stub tenons and cut the matching mortises before installing the inlayed panel. The brutal process of removing the tabletop has already resulted in me being down on the floor on hands and knees searching for tiny pieces of displaced ‘bone’!

[aldav]

Hi fletty, If this is indeed bone and you're going to have a go at carving the inlay yourself my wife has a recipe for preparing the bone that she used to use at the lapidary club. My only recollection of her working with the bone is that it was pretty stinky and was thus strictly for the club rooms.

[fletty]

Hi fletty, If this is indeed bone and you're going to have a go at carving the inlay yourself my wife has a recipe for preparing the bone that she used to use at the lapidary club. My only recollection of her working with the bone is that it was pretty stinky and was thus strictly for the club rooms.

Thanks Aldav. Your comment about the odour revived my fading memory of what I was shown in China! Think knackery meets tannery meets hide glue! My mentor got his supplies from the back door of an eating place that I wouldn’t even walk in to. He pulverised the bone with a hammer and then ground it to a fine powder with a mortar and pestle in to which he then added hide glue if it was a new job yet to be finished, or shellac if it was a repair. After searching the floor, there is now only 1 ‘petal’ in the top left corner....

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.... that I feel the need to repair? I’m tempted to decant a tin of Classic Cream spray paint into a cup and use a fine brush to wick it into the rebate .......... provided you guys promise not to tell anyone

[Lappa]

How’s the table going Fletty?
I noticed a can of Restorafinish - used that on some other of my wife’s grandparents furniture (following your recommendation) and it can up a treat.

[fletty]

Hi Lap’, yes, sorry but I got a bit sidetracked with this.....

https://www.woodworkforums.com/f87/f...00#post2182355

.... but you must be telepathetic because only this afternoon I started looking for the most appropriate timber to make the new top frame. I have some rather plain Australian red cedar that has the right base colour but I’m worried about its softness?
I use the Restor-a-finish on just about every job I do now but discovering that they also made a NEUTRAL as well as dedicated timber colours has made it even more useful! It is perfect for Chinese black lacquer ware. I’ll be back on to the table in the next few days because it is to be a surprise birthday gift due on May5 ...... which used to seem so far away

[fletty]

Back on to the Chinese table restoration. I went down the backyard to the SECRET TIMBER STASH and found a glorious piece of dark Australian red cedar

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It is only just big enough to do the job and so I can’t afford to make any mistakes but, given the number of mistakes I have made recently, this will require a minor miracle!

[NCArcher]

We believe in you Fletty. Get it done

[fletty]

We believe in you Fletty. Get it done

You’re possibly referring to the fletty who wouldn’t have done a marathon sanding effort yesterday without the vacuum hose being connected to the sander? The fletty currently STILL cleaning up the shed did?

[fletty]

Started the Chinese through tenon joinery....

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Getting there......

[fletty]

Had a light day in the shed today. It seems I was making quarantine look like too much fun? I trimmed the top frame joints until it all came together neatly around the inlayed panel...

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... and then glued the frame with hide glue making sure that the inlayed panel could still float

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The four lugs that come up from the legs and are pierced by the pins that held table top on,

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..... were damaged during disassembly due to the hidden nails IN ADDITION to the pins and need to be repaired even if I only use them to locate the table top, so I extracted the pieces from the old table top frame and glued them back to the stumps that were left.....

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The clamped table top closed up nicely around the inlayed panel and I’m looking forward to cleaning it up tomorrow...

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[crowie]

When one can play in the shed at one's passion, who gives a toss about quarantine isolation issues

I've had so much shed time that I have stop every couple of days to clean up the mess...

Keep enjoying the shed time Alan while following the government guidelines to isolate...

Cheers, Peter

PS - The table is coming on nicely, well done on the one shot Australian Red Cedar...

[fletty]

The lugs to hold the table top on are actually a continuation of the legs but unfortunately they were ‘shredded’ when the old table top was removed due mostly to my ‘mystery nailer’. I have decided to make a subframe which will mount to the legs using what is left of the lugs and then the table top can mount to the subframe. This is the table top on top of the subframe and before the subframe was glued together...

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The subframe needed cut outs for the lugs to pass through and these were cut with saws before the subframe components were joined...

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One of the shelf supports was BADLY rotted and, due to the complexity of the ‘cracked ice’ bottom shelf which is joined to it, I didn’t want to risk removing the whole support so I put the table on the router table (!) and passed it over a parallel cutter until I had removed enough of the rotted timber to allow me to make and fit a new outer face. This photos show the process...

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I then chiseled out the mitred ends of the old shelf support and came across some more of ‘mystery nailers’ handiwork...

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... and then cut, shaped and glued a new outer face to the shelf support...

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The shed would soon be filled with end-of-day light and so I thought I would roughly assemble the whole catastrophe and make up a colour sample while there was still daylight. The colour samples in the first photo (L to R) are Feast Watson brown Japan, oak and walnut and in the second photo I’ve put on a single coat of WOP on the sample pallet.

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The colour decision will be made tomorrow but it looks like a combination of brown Japan and oak?