Difficult Restoration of a Broken Chair, a Woodworking Repair by Fixing Furniture 

Words can't describe how much gratitude I have for the valuable lessons in furniture repair you keep putting out. I have watched the whole video in one run and wished for it not to end. Thank you so much for sharing the tips and tricks of your fine craft. I wish you and yours all the best.

Good day, thanks for the incredible videos! A quick note on superglue/CA glue: As a former paramedic, we dealt with superglue for more than you'd expect. CA/superglue is strong on tension, weak in torsion. If you ever get your skin glued, twist a few times instead of pulling, and the glue will usually break without issue.

The work you did on this chair is amazing! All of those tiny details to keep track of and work out in unison!! Wow!! I do like the two toned look of walnut on cabinets or other large pieces. Not sure that would be my personal preference for this older chair, especially since it has repairs. But like you said, it’s what makes the owner happy, and that’s all that really matters. Thanks for a great and comprehensive video!!!

I find the contrast of walnut sapwood very attractive on contemporary pieces, not sure about it in this case. Of course if you own a piece you can do what you like with it but I always try to respect what the original maker visualised. Very comprehensive vid Scott, thanks for posting.

There's something hypnotic about watching a master at work, and Sr, you also know your audience, your editing is so spot on, there are times at I might have forgotten to breath. The hour-long video left me wanting more, while at the same time feeling like a lifetime of advice.

Excellent video Scott and very enjoyable to watch. I really look forward to your uploads as you have a great presentational style which is friendly but authoritative and informative at the same time. Thank you.

Scott, thanks for these videos. I’m learning a lot. I’ve got a rocking chair that has broken “Zigzag “ springs. Where can I buy these? Thanks.

"I've stopped questioning whether it's valuable or not--it's really up to the individual." Thank you. The value only really matters if you're going to sell it. If I just want it to be structurally sound, complete, and somewhat better-looking for its own sake, and I'm willing to pay for it, who cares?

I continue to learn something new with each video, Scott. Your technique for adding scraps of walnut to repair the broken pieces was very informative. Thanks!

45 years ago my Jr Highschool allowed the girls to take one semester of wood shop. I loved it then, but never had the opportunity to continue. You are inspiring me to at least do small repairs on my old beloved family pieces. ❤

I am new to this channel. I find it is on another (higher) level, compared to nearly all the other channels with a similar focus, and certainly on par with best of the rest. Love it! Thank you. (I am the son of a 98-year-old cabinet maker, 5th generation wood worker. I hasten to add that I myself am not a wood working professional. I am just an amateur wood worker.) I actually have a chair that looks exactly like the one you restore here. I was told it was 18th C. French.

Appropriate title as this was quite complicated! Awesome job, Scott. I actually love the way the owner finished them. I really like the two-tone coloring.

A steady hand for very detailed work, extensive knowledge of bonding agents and fillers, and demonstration of a ton of patience with no cursing. All in 1 amazing video TY!

Loving that two tone wood finish, the customer made a VERY good decision 48:57 timestamp

Great job,hope people realize how difficult this work. Really nice

Sap wood: If I am joining two or more boards with sap wood edges, before cutting it away and scrapping it, I try joining the two sap wood edges together to see how it looks. It might resemble a book matched board good enough for a tool chest but probably not good enough for fine furniture. I agree with your suggestion in reference to use of darker stain in this case.

Fantastic repair and beautiful result. I love how meticulous you are and how you pay attention to the smallest details.

🤠 Thanks for the great video and awesome tutorial and tips. I never get tired of watching your work evolve in to a finished piece.

Thank you for sharing your amazing craftsmanship. Your work is stunning!! 😊

You sir are a true craftsman! I enjoy watching your videos a lot, thank you for posting.

Thank you for sharing the tips and tricks of all these beautiful items you work on. It is an absolute teaching and amazing almost hands on tutorial of how to do it right. Loving this video. I can appreciate both looks of the wood....I love the traditional but can appreciate the lighter wood mixed as a conversation piece but if looking close the style is more as tho it had been patched, which it has been but eclectic. I can appreciate it both ways, I myself would have chosen what you had suggested myself as I am more traditional. I love wood in all colors for what they are. The most treasured piece I have is purple wood which my father had his friend make we six sisters a hand mirror for a Christmas gift. It is beautiful and I find it very attractive yet very simply made....but made with perfection. Thank you for all your working on these beautiful things. Trena shared with us your sharpening tutorial and I had to come and visit and subscribe. I am so glad she shared that.........my father always kept a wet stone to sharpen mothers kitchen knives. My father would be 101 years old if he were still here so that is an art from years and so thrilled to see you use that! Before each big holiday out came the sharpening stone and each knife got a good blade that cut the meat /birds beautifully.........thanks for triggering memories as well!

What skill! And patience! It’s a pleasure to watch you work. Thank you

Hi ... I'm not able to see the Like Button for this Video ... Thank You.. and God Bless ... Mohammed A. Rahim Manama - Bahrain

I truly love watching the transformation and the attention to detail that goes in to your repairs. Thank you for sharing this.

Brilliant !!!!!!! Love this ♥️ Thank you Scott.

Nice to see a Canadian workshop restoring furniture. I’m a 71 year old woman from Taber Alberta who enjoys giving life back to old furniture too. Mostly I’ve been watching master restorers from Europe but now I’ve subscribed to you as well. I enjoyed hearing what you are using and doing instead of watching and reading and wondering what product they are using because it’s got some strange name and not available here in CA. God bless! 🙏🏼🙏🏻🙏🏽🙏🏾👏🏻🇨🇦☝🏻

Very Nice Work, a masterpiece. As the old saying goes; "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder"

Thanks Scott for another great informative and entertaining video. I always come away learning something. One item comes to minde though on heating a joint. you are very relucktant to over heat and burn the wood. Tom Johnson seems to live by heat on a suborn joint. he uses the two minute rule on low setting using a timer. and so far he has not had any burn problems . to each their own as the old saying goes. thanks again for sharing. ECF

I have 2 tables that need restoration and refinishing. Both are antiques of different ages. I know that the smaller table has beautiful wood underneath the blackish finish. I also was blest to be given a sofa that my grandparents bought PRE- WW2. The frame is very solid and sturdy with medium brown Naugahyde “skin” and 3 seat cushions - 12x12x 2” . The springs and cushions and dust screen all need replacement and there are some small areas of the “skin” needs some attention. The stuffing in the 3 cushions are horsehair, but I don’t know where to get high quality foam in the size I need. Any idea what the cost would be to get this sofa back to better shape for the next 4 or 5 generations of family use?

That was great, I really enjoyed and learned. Thank You Very Much.

In your fix #3 you mixed paint to touch up a chair..........you were adding white to yellow and making a large amount of paint! You want to add a little of the darker color-yellow, to the lighter color-white and not end up with more paint than necessary/needed!

I have never played with walnuts before but I love the natural look not stain . Thanks for sharing 😊.

Personally - like the natural wood finish. Although if the chair is part of a set would seem odd, stand-alone nice accent piece.

With CA glues, you can also use the instant-set thin stuff, line your pieces up, clamp together, then drip the glue into the joint. It will flow in, and you get a nearly invisible bond. My ex used to use it for building radio controlled model planes, which are subject to quite a lot of stress. The wood is usually balsa or bass wood, and if you happened to crash the plane, the wood would break anywhere except at that glue joint. It makes a very strong joint. WOW! What delicate work, trimming off less than a kerf at a time!

So very good & such attention to detail! Thanks for the video and I agree - wood-craft is a dying trade.

Thanks for the in-depth dive on this project. All those details are very informative.

Looks good. Excellent job.

Fantastic work and craftman ship. A joy to watch. Thank you.

This was so cool. Your eyes really do just skim over the drawn-in lines and patches because they aren't different/obvious repairs. Well done!

Your video editing is excellent. And your explanations are great. But what I most enjoyed is seeing such a beautiful chair brought back to life. After seeing such difficult restoring of missing parts you are among the best restorers I've seen. It was such a delicate work of restoring this beautifully crafted chair. Excellent.

There are off course different opinions about what to hide and what to reveal. It used to be common to hide dovetail joints. But now dovetail joints are an indicator of age and workmanship as opposed to something factory made. So you might want them to be in full view. It does not surprise me at all that a customer might like to have the wood be in full view. The contrast between the light and dark wood is kinda cool. Even if it wasn't intended that way. You see that sometimes in old building that have been recently renovated. Sometimes they like to highlight at show off the old construction and history of the place

Great video, very easy to understand patching in new wood. I think I would have gone for the stain to even out the colour, more in keeping with the age of the chair.

I quite like the contrast between the sapwood and heartwood, especially on the front leg. I think it adds to the visual interest of the piece.

I think the chair could have looked more uniform, had someone with more skill at staining and toning done the finishing work. I think the chair could have been finished to show off the lovely walnut but also disguise the sap wood. It wasn't a choice of only a clear coat or only a very dark stain. What a vast amount of work to fix this one!

Maybe the customer has more chairs like this and he doesn't want this chair look different.

I am a carpenter and I figure that in about 10 years of you making this type of content I will be able to open my own shop! Lol thanks for all the hard work and that looks great

Excellent video Scott. Very informative and the repair just disappeared.

I like the way the wood looks. It is a pleasant change from dark wood.

Wow. That was a really hard one, like a jigsaw puzzle. Thank you.

I enjoy watching because of the obvious care exuded to detail.

I would have loved a close up of the repairs at the very end. Thank you.

Wedge technique was very useful

Hello. I really like your work, well done. what is the name of the chair?

I wonder if she knew there would be such contrast before she decided on the lighter finish.

Truly you are an excellent craftsman. You work like a surgeon.

Such a dedicated craftsman. Proud to see him in the profession!

Nice job, i love to see a old chair be repair and still being used

Scott: this was a tough restoration. However, you did a brilliant job. I held my breath a few times. So instructive. Coincidentally, I just donated a Victorian side chair just like this,except there was a grape carving at the top of the back rail. I had it restored, and off it went for a silent auction for a museum fundraiser. It had the original red mohair fabric seat in mint shape still on it. Before I let it go, I just admired it. That fabric seat on the newly restored chair was a site to behold. It went to a good home. Carol from California

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Your posts are so amazing! I've learned so much! Keep up the great lessons!

This is a well upholstered chair.

I agree with the customer. Natural is nice, just as your dark stain plan is. Either way, you did a masterful job.

You are a true artist. Thank you for sharing your talents.

Scott; I admire your patience when tackling that "jigsaw puzzle" from 18 minutes on in your video. Also you ingenuity in making new parts to replace those broken ones is fascinating. A beautiful repair to that elegant chair!

Excellents work from both sides, great video and have a nice day. Brian UK 👍👍👍

You are an awesome instructor. I watched 2 of your videos this morning, and I learned a lot. Thanks for posting your work!

Amazing work Scott!!

So glad I found out about your channel. I came over from Trena'a John's Furniture repair channel

You make it look so easy I think I could do it 🤯

Well done Scott! This balloon back chair and its damage is a perfect demonstration of the weakness of the design. The short grain sections in the curves are always the weak spot. Owners should always move these by lifting under the seat, not the crest rail! Don't lean back either!

Love the work. Hate the cheap non woven fabric at the bottom. Yes, I admit it, I'm very picky and if it was my chair, I would think about it all the time, like a hairline crack on a ceiling no one else would notice…

Beautiful work! I would've never thought that much damage could be repaired.

Very informative video thank you very much. Great job on the outstanding work on this chair and I agree with you they should have stained it dark.

When it comes to small cracks why us colored wax instead of wood putty. Just wondering

I like the contrast of the sap vs heart would. However, if this had matching chairs I would go for a similar finish.

Very nice job...love watching you work.

A most wonderful restoration!

Excellent handwork

Excellent handwork

Isn't it possible to wash/change the old fabrics inside the cushion?

I’m just wondering….. why is hide glue no longer used in modern furniture making?

Another excellent repair Scott 👏👏👍

It seems to me this style chair is a more formal style which the variation in wood colors is not complementary to the style. I would have wanted a dark finish to cover the variations in wood color to be in line with the style. The variation would have looked right with a more casual style chair.

Thank you for another amazing video. They give me so much perspective when it comes to effort and the work I do, and I don’t even work with furniture!

I also watch Thomas Johnson’s antique repairs

Your channel is underrated. 👍🏻 everyone to help the algorithm.

my husband and I both like the 2 tone effect of the different walnut colors.

Heroic repair. Great stuff.

You did a whole of work on that chair and hours. How much did you or would you charge to that much work?

Excellent repair well done. I am wanting to learn this skill myself. Really appreciate your videos, thank you

Verry nice job. ❤

The application of the patch blocks was completely worth watching this video. The end result looked great. Is carving the final features your favorite part of the process? I know that carving is my favorite.

That is a beautiful job…like all of yours, well done

I never try to figure someone else value in piece. I tell them the price for repairs and it is up to them if the value is there. I have had a $50 chair that someone wanted completely restored, they paid what I asked and were very happy. It was a family piece and was worth the cost of restoration to the family. I wish I could carve pieces like you, I have a friend who does it for me when needed. Great channel, love the videos. I have learned so much watching your videos. Cheers from Newfoundland.

Enjoyed the video Scott. That was a tough looking repair. You made it look easy and it looks great. Seeing the sapwood against the dark does give the piece some interest. Thanks for the video. You all take care and God bless.

Very nice job!

I personally enjoy the look of the sapwood, it gives it character 😊

Just wow... all the tricks and skill..

Excellent job patching the missing wood and everything else. I’ve learned so much watching you. And I don’t care for the look of sap wood showing in the walnut chair.

You are the man! I have watch more than 3 hours of your videos. I doing my 2nd project after watching your videos. The first was a roll top desk. I'm still not good in finishing...so it came out okay but whit a lot of mistakes. It was for my wife , she love it but I'm my biggest critic. I'm now building a vanity desk for my granddaughter. I'm, aging using an old desk I found. It needs a few repairs. From what I watch from you, I think I should use epoxy glue. Where did you get the silicone cups?

I have a new found addiction to your channel! Would love to have a little background on each piece you restore. ❤