Saving A Battered, Old Chair

THIS CHAIR has seen better days:

(all of these pics are halfway through sanding, to show just how much *crud* is in/on this wood)

Don't get me wrong, it's a good chair.  It's extremely well-made, sturdy, and not a joint is out of place, though it looks horrible.  What you're looking at is several years' worth of

• rain/water damage
• sun exposure/oxidation
• corroded varnish
• sweaty fighter butts (ewww)

Not only was the finish shot, but the wood was so swollen with weather and age in places that the chair wouldn't fully open OR close...rendering a really nice chair completely useless. 

I'll be honest, I was dreading the prospect of sanding allllll those pieces individually.  I guess the chair, or the Universe, or the Powers-That-Be heard me - because I could NOT get this thing apart to save my life.  I tried every tool at my disposal, got friends to help me, even tried to grind the hardware out, but it appears to have been made of naquadah-enhanced unobtanium, and sealed with black magic.  @_@  In the end I had to sand and stain this thing WHILE FULLY ASSEMBLED.  I'm here to tell you that was a bitch. 

BUT I got it done: 

(I could no longer feel my hands after this...and it still needed more sanding)

Here's the first coat of stain, applied very, very carefully, with a small brush and a lot of paper towels.  The chair is solid oak, and pretty well weathered and seasoned; still, I didn't want to chance the stain swelling the wood and undoing all the work I put into buffing down the seat pieces so that this thing would move properly again.  Rubbing stain into the wood with paper towels keeps too much stain from soaking in and swelling the wood, and it also gives you a LOT more control over the depth and amount of color.  

(oooh, aahhh)

After two more coats of stain, and several coats of spray poly-acrylic (for a low-tack, matte-sheen clearcoat, rather than a polyurethane which could stick in hot weather), it was finally done:

(The dark area of the back piece was severely stained, deep enough that I couldn't surface clean it out, or even sand it off the wood.  It's the same on the reverse of the piece; in fact, it's worse on the other side.  I have no idea what caused it, but, this was the best I could do with it). 

Sir John's and his lady Bridget's devices painted on the center of the back rest, in acrylic paint, and heavily clear-coated to prevent scratching.

Tada! 

A Very Small Project

Anybody getting tired of Sir John yet?  ;)

This is an honor shield I painted for him last night.  They hang these things to announce tournament pairings for some tournaments (and I wish they'd do it for all of them. It's a really nifty practice, and one of those Little Things that really adds to the overall mood at an event!)

6" across at the top.  acrylics on plywood

I printed out the lion badge and traced it onto the primed wood with
sewing tracing paper! 

the chalk lines from the paper brushed right off - once the black
outlines were done, that is.  

four coats of blue paint later...   I painted the white chief and badge as well, so
that the paint finish would match (and not just leave the white primer
showing through).   The back is painted solid blue; and the whole thing
is sealed with spray-on polycrylic.   

Another Friend Outfit, Another Blue Outfit

A  short men's houppelande with embattled/dagged sleeves, for Sir John to wear to a 14th century pas d'armes tournament:

The lion (and embattled chief) on the front are 16" across.  If you've ever appliquéd anything, you know that's quite a lot of appliqué!   And all the twists and turns, yikes!  It was HARD.  I love hard.  I've been sewing since I was 9..."hard" is FUN.  :)

The lion was traced from a blown-up computer printout, and then inked
with india ink from my calligraphy set:  it's permanent, dark, and waterproof.
Creating this thing, from start to finish, took me four hours. 

I dyed the tongue red using a mixture of acrylic paint and fabric medium.
Before cutting out the lion, I put a heavy adhesive interfacing backing on
it so that it would be stiff enough to prevent all the little claws and hairs
from curling and shifting as it was sewn down. 

figuring out placement

satin-stitching around the chief...before I remembered that
I needed to do this in black!  Whoops.

This was my solution, rather than removing ALL that blue thread.
Came out pretty dang spiffy, too.  

Back view, during the tournament.



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Another One For A Friend

Speaking of stuff I've done recently but neglected to blog about:

Here's an English/Norman surcote I did for another friend of mine, back in the September 2011.

This is Sir John of Severn, leader of the fighting company I mentioned in that post about the Japanese jin-baori.  Every member of the unit has at least one outfit done in company and kingdom colors, but in the style of their persona, be it English, Japanese, German, etc.

The whole thing is heavy linen, and unlined.  It's also quarter-charged (divided quarterly, as opposed to having a gold half and a black half).  I sewed the surcote and the appliqés (stars and lions);  another friend of his painted the company's motto around the bottom (Ut simus invicti:  "together we are invincible").

There's more coming, too, on this front, in future posts.
Stay tuned. :)





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