11-16-2020, 09:09 PM
(11-11-2020, 05:24 AM)ed kerns Wrote: Really some excellent advice here guys - thank you all!
Paul, I'm about half way through the chair repairs and have been pretty much following the techniques you shared. It's interesting because of 8 chairs I've been asked to fix, only 2 are matching. I'm especially pleased to hear your testament for TB2. I've never cared for Gorilla Glue for wood joints and so far almost every joint I've re-glued has been a decent fit. It's been a good education for me. Amazing how some joints will be literally falling apart, while others hold on for dear life. Even the stubborn joints I've been able to disassemble with a little heat, moisture and enough taps with my trusty Harbor Freight dead blow hammer.
I'm curious, those of you who repaired chairs in a shop setting, what would you estimate the 'average' repair cost to be? I quoted $50 per chair with the understanding that I might have to adjust that, once repairs were under way. The first one probably took me 3 hours, but the last couple have been about an hour and a half of actual work. I suspect my price is low. but mine is just a hobby shop, and some of the time I have to chalk up to tuition costs.
Ed,
TB2 isn't what I use. I use TB original. It's more reversible and repairable, but TB2 is ok. I use a lot of hide glue too. People don't understand how good some of the old technology really is. For chair work, hide glue is unmatched, it's harder to work with but it works great. Pricing is a tough game, chair complexity plays a role, chairs with extra stringers and crossmembers add tenons and mortises to clean and reassemble. Like you said some come easy and some fight tooth and nail. The shop I worked in started at $100 and up for a re-glue. Most re-glue jobs needed some kind of repair, broken tenons, broken dowels, dog chewed tenons and legs, minor repairs we did no extra charge, bigger repairs extra charge. I try to go with a steady rate that I feel comfortable with, but just like in life, some times things go better than I thought and some jobs beat me a little. It's all part of the game and I have lowered prices when things went really easy, but I have never raised a price after I quote one.
The most expensive chair I did was probably around $250, it was shattered terribly and tied up a bench for 2 days, gluing parts back together before the parts could be reassembled into a chair. I didn't work on it for two days solid, glue-ups sat over night before I could put it back together. It was an antique chair and although it wasn't possible to make it perfect due to the extensive damage it had, the woman who owned it was super happy with it, most of the repairs weren't visible. It was her great grandmother's and she had never seen it in one piece, her mother saved the pieces for over 40 years.
As far as chairs not matching, that's normal. If you really want a surprise, look at all of the spindles on a single chair. I had one set of chairs come in, I had finished 3 and all of the stretchers matched. When I was wiping the excess glue from the joints, I froze, one of the spindles didn't match, at first I thought I had switched one from another place in the chair, then I worried I accidently used one from another chair. After checking my taped marks and being sure they were right, I concluded that they must have been short one stretcher at the factory or had a wrong part in a bin but it was clearly original. Those chairs were probably 40 years old.
Good luck,
Paul