Restoring a Set of Thomas Moser Chairs - Thomas Johnson Antique Furniture Restoration

I'm Tom Johnson, Thomas Johnson Antique Furniture Restoration in Gorham, Maine. These are four Thomas Moser chairs. Thomas Moser is a well-known furniture maker here in Maine. These chairs were built in 1982 while they still had their workshop in New Gloucester, Maine. You can see that they're even signed on the bottom and they're in pretty good shape. Generally speaking, they've been in continuous use since 1982. They just need to be cleaned up and re-oiled. There's a few loose legs here and there. And then two of the chairs, this is the worst one, when the owner was cleaning them it left some really bad marks over here. So we've sort of got to give these, not just re-oiling, but I've got to clean them down and get rid of these black marks. So sort of refinish them. They also have damage where the finish is worn away to the bottom of the legs and stuff. This is just normal wear and tear and I want to bring them back. The first step is going to be to do any gluing that's necessary. On this chair, both front legs are loose. You can see it moving around there. And even though they're wedged through the top, I was hoping to push these straight through so I could re-glue them. But I noticed immediately on the bottom here, they look like they're pinned. I don't know if what I'm looking at is a dowel that goes through that leg that was then cut off or if that's a plug. So I'm going to poke around it a little bit and see what it is. Luckily that is a plug, I believe, not a dowel. No, I don't think it's a... I think it's a dowel. I thought maybe it was holding a small screw, but it's a dowel that goes into that leg. See how that dowel's moving right there? So it may be, if I hit this from the other side, we can break that. Let's see. You know, I realized, looking at the way these legs are pinned, and you can see this pin, which looks like a 316th dowel, is moving with the leg. I began to realize if I try to push that leg through, I'm going to split all this wood out where it's so thin here at the bottom of the chair. So I think what I want to try on these chairs is a glue that's designed to penetrate joints and tighten them up without disassembly. I usually like to disassemble pieces, but if it's going to damage the chair to disassemble it, it's worth it to try to use the penetrating adhesive. When this chair is sitting on its four legs, it's pushing the front legs up through the seat. So I want to bring those back down where they belong when I glue it. So I'm going to lay it on its back. Okay, once the legs are secure, the next step is just to wash these down. I assume these chairs have an oil finish, so I'm just going to use a dishwashing liquid, one that's particularly known for cutting oil and grease, and I'll just clean them. All right, I've cleaned these down with the dishwasher detergent. It worked really well. They took the finish right off, right down to the bare wood. Now I'm going to go over with a mild solution of oxalic acid. There's still grayness where people's hands were, and in a couple places on these chairs, there's a lot of gray damage where some metal came in contact with them. So I'm just going to mix up some oxalic acid in hot water. Okay, for this I'm just going to use hot water out of the tap. You can see how the oxalic is brightening up the wood a little bit in areas that didn't seem to come completely clean. There's still a little bit of grayness. I think the dishwash will do the trick. Okay, so I've sanded the chairs with 150 and then really well with 220, and they feel great. They look great. They're ready for the first coat of tung oil. Okay, so this is completely coated. I'll set it aside and start on the other chairs, but I'll keep coming back to this, just keeping it wet. Let that first coat really soak in. Okay, I've got all four chairs. They've been soaking for about a half an hour now, and I'm going to wipe them off. I'm using a knit rag, kind of making it into a pad here, and just wiping them down, and it seems to be leaving a nice coat. I'm sure it's going to soak in some more. Okay, I've let these chairs dry now for a few days. We've got two coats on, and they look great, and I think I can do the final coat. I'm going to do that with a satin tung oil and with steel wool to smooth it out, and then pat it off with a rag. I'm just patting this, keeping a slight pressure, and the rag seems to glide right across it. I think this all looks really good now. I'm going to save the seat for last. I'm going to do the legs next. All right, now the seat. Okay, so I'll let that dry overnight. Okay, this third coat has dried overnight. They look really good. They can almost go the way they are now, but just to make them super smooth and super nice, I'm going to go over them with some four zero steel wool and my beeswax and orange oil polish, and I'm just, I'm not applying a lot of pressure, just very, very gently, and then I'll ask the owners of these chairs to continue using this polish. All right, they're ready to go. These Thomas Moser chairs were built in 1982. They're 34 years old. They've been in continuous use, so they really weren't in bad shape considering. They just needed a little re-gluing, and then it was time to clean and revive the finish. I think they look pretty good.