I’m in front of a Stickley rocker that needs some repair work. Most of it is minor. I’ve got 2 questions that I could use some input on:
1) Opinion – looks like a dog gnawed on one of the arms and there are a few other places where a long edge had been chipped away. Where it is a Stickley, do I a) leave it alone and just “clean” the piece up a bit, b) take the edge off what I can without changing piece and touch up the finish, or c)patch or replace parts in question?
2) The rockers were removed from the chair at some point. I’d like to have them back. Is anyone familiar with any articles, plans or other sources of information that would give me dimensions something close to the original piece?
…and then there is the task of matching the finish. I think they fumed and finished the QSWO. …matching this aged finish doesn’t sound fun at all.
I’m not hung up on market value. I’m more interested in turning it back into a nice piece of furniture but, not being of Stickley caliber, I want to make sure that I do it justice.
Thanks for your thoughts.
-jason
Replies
While inspecting a 1/4" cut in the front seat rail, I noticed that the joint on one side was loose. There is a cleat that is holding it on but the tenon is broken.
If I choose not to replace it I can either drill and dowel the joint back together or do a slip tenon.
I'm really kind of torn on how much to do to it.
jason ,
Sounds like the foundation is sound , go to Stickley.com and look at the line of rockers , you may see the chair . Do some scaling or find the nearest Stickley showroom .
I like building Stickley type pieces but ,
For me the most difficult part is the color , it simply can not be done with a one step stain and shoot , however it can be done with a series or schedule provided by http://www.homesteadfinishing.com Jeff goes on to give complete instructions which I have not used myself but have heard great things about .
Personally , I would either restore the chair to original as much as possible by taking the bad parts off and splicing new wood and making new runners ,,,,or leave it alone respect the chairs makers and do it right , just me .
regards from Oregon dusty
oldusty,
Thanks for the reply. The more I contemplate the possible difficulty in matching the finish, the more I think that I am going to simply repair the one seat rail tenon and redo the seat cushion. Something just seems wrong about messing with the piece in any grander fashion.
Although Jewitt's article on Mission Oak Finish seems pretty straight forward, I'm not sure what luck I would have matching the color as it has aged. ...possibly a lot of trial and error.
I guess I'll get to try my hand at matching the finish when I build the footstool to go with the chair.
Thanks for sharing the photos.
Thanks for the advice.
-jason
There is a book. "The furniture of Gustav Stickley" by Joseph J. Bavaro and Thomas L. Mossman.
On page 108 there is a rocker. Pages 108-116 have complete cut list, dimensions of each piece and of the entire chair and procedure for assembling the chair.
ASK
Excellent! That sounds like a great resource. Thank you.
Go ahead and fix it. It is a piece made by humans and like us it changes with age. If you want it to be a rocker, go ahead and put the rockers back on. There is a school of thinking that says if you are changing something historic, you should make the changes obvious. I'm not of that school. I think you should make it whole and useable once again to suit your needs. I think as a friend said about his passion for old clocks and their cases that they carried with them a history of repair and the touch of human hands. That can be just as interesting as holding out the belief that some man made perfect objects that can't be altered. Some of that stuff is down right clunky.
As I say about people wanting to restore their rooms to historic colors, what makes you think that they got it right the first time?
You comments are very similar to those of a friend of mine that deals in high-end antiques across the country.He told me of a family owned pocket watch that was worth several thousands of dollars. He said that it wasn't the style or maker of the watch that made it worth a lot. Rather, it was the fact that every repair made to this watch since the early 1800's was noted by an inscription on the inside of the back cover, showing the jeweler and dates of each repair that made it valuable. It was the history that made the difference.He also scolded me for not marking each WW piece I have built, helped with or repaired in order to build or contribute to that history. He said that it really isn't a far stretch to think that a piece any one of us build and pass down through the family will have a value comparable to his watch (regardless of our woodworking pedigree)if we simply tend to recording the history of the piece. In my opinion, pondering the history of any old piece is pretty interesting.
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