Oh...it's begun. And it is ON buddy. Me and these Paul McCobb chairs as well as this third piece to my newly acquired Lane living room table set have a date with destiny. These are the pieces I vow to have back in use this winter. I know, I know...the table. That's a cake walk. No problem. But those chairs, well...that's a whole another ball of wax.
First things first with this Lane end or side...or even lamp table. I've got to get a piece of glass
cut for the top. Obviously I'm not going to do this myself. I'm not up for anything like that. I'll
leave that to the professionals.
The boo boos on the frame however represent a challenge I am willing to accept. I've been
itching to try out the Howards Restore-A-Finish. I've heard nothing but good things about it.
The Howards Feed-n-Wax is a great product so I can't imagine being disappointed by the
Restore-A-Finish. I'll grab up a can next time I drop by True Value Hardware store. And
that should just about take care of the table. NEXT!
If you'll remember back to early last summer (oh I know...it's such a bitter sweet thing that I
ask), I found a set of four Paul McCobb dining chairs at the Goodwill in Fairview Heights Il.
(about 30 miles from here, but on the way to the Drive In movies). It was a serendipitous find
as it wasn't a planned trip to the thrift store. We just had a few extra minutes to kill before the
movie and I couldn't help myself.
Nice set of chairs, but here's the rub - the caning that issupposed to fill the seatbacks was missing. I did a little
web searching and with the help of Jonathan Goldstein
I was able to find the appropriate style of canning to
restore the seatbacks properly...or at least as properly
as I'm likely to get. I had no idea how tricky it would be
to get the caning for this project. I thought I'd just have
to put "chair caning" (or some such nonsense) in the
Google answer box and it would tell me where the
nearest hobby shop is. No such luck. Then I asked the
the one person who's always had the answers to life's
toughest questions: Mom. She told me to try this place
in old St. Charles called WSI distributors. Yup, they
totally had what I needed but aren't open weekends (unless
you call and make an appointment, I think). I dropped by and picked up what I needed
last week on one of my days off. Score!
Another problem - two of the chairs have cane spline glued intothe groove that must be removed before the new caning and
spline can be installed. I've already started on one of the chairs
and 3/4 of it came out pretty easily while the last 1/4 is proving
to be glued in there rather well. I don't really have the proper
tools for this but I'm not going to go buy no tools just for two
chairs! I don't plan on making a habit of this, believe me. It'llbe nice to have some experience doing this in case I need to do
it again...and if the issue comes up more often than I expect,
well...maybe then I'll look into buying some proper tools for the
job. Until then I'll be jabbing small screwdrivers into my digits
like I did the other night...and losing copious amounts of life fluid
in the process. I might need to invest in a suture kit as well. Don't
you think these are gonna be mighty fancy sittin' pieces when
done?!
Can't wait to see how they turn out! I'm waaaaay too lazy for a project that ambitious.
ReplyDeleteHave a very Merry Christmas!
So how did they turn out? Dying to see the restores. I am in love with these. I pretty much drool over anything Paul McCobb. These chairs are stunning. I've never seen the diamond shape Lane cocktail table - too cool. I have the round one like this but the triangle shape is awesome.
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