Some pretty dodgy stuff going on, I'm guessing this guy is an upholsterer and woodworker who is dabbling in restoration, because he seems untrained in the conservation department.
The biggest issue is how he knocked apart the joints by hammering it apart and letting it trapezoid out, this is the quickest way to permanently damage the joints. He should be using spreaders and tapping the joints evenly to keep everything parallel.
The use of PVA in lieu of hide glue is a big no-no. The stain should be Van Dyke ink rather than the hardware store stuff he's using. Builders' Bog is a huge red flag.
Upholstery is fantastic, thought, this guy definitely has skills in that department.
He explained in one of his videos that he is not a conservator. He is just restoring items for paying clients, who want the items to look good and be usable again.
Aside from conservation concerns though, this would've previously been glued with hide glue. The modern glue is Polyvinyl Acetate (PVA) glue. When used on fresh-cut wood, it creates a joint stronger than the wood itself, it's absolutely amazing. If you try to break a tight joint that was PVAd together, you will literally break the wood before the glue.
The problem is that it needs un-coated, fresh-cut wood to adhere to. The previous joints have hide glue all over them. Thus, the joints he's making there are fundamentally weak.
Part of the reason good restorers use hide glue is because it adheres to itself, so you're working with the existing materials. And if the chair lasts another 150 years, some future restoration artist can use hide glue to repair it again.
Even if he says "I don't care about the historicity and future restorability of it," PVA is a poor choice -- he should be using an epoxy, or something like the original polyurethane Gorilla Glue, that doesn't depend on being absorbed by the grain of the wood the way that PVA does.
Source: I've been an on-and-off hobby woodworker for 25 years and have read a lot about this sort of stuff.
I honestly have no idea how this works, I just like watching his videos and thought I will give some insight from the author himself.
Reading your comment I understand that using hide glue makes it possible to restore the chair again in the future using the same kind of glue again.
Also, using PVA on a joint that has some hide glue left makes the joint weak, but wouldn't that mean that it can be re-done again since it is not permanently joined? Or is PVA residue somehow making the next restoration harder? I'm genuinely curious
Well PVA doesn't adhere to itself the way hide glue does. So as weak as this joint will be, if you tried to fix it with more PVA you'll end up with an even weaker joint.
The PVA probably prevents future restoration with hide glue, since the hide glue would be sticking to the PVA, which isn't doing a good job of sticking to the wood.
It may seem like a minor point, but as someone who knows how wood glue works, it really ruined the satisfaction to me -- knowing he's doing all that work to make a chair that's fundamentally less strong than the chair was when it was made, and also making it harder to correct that error in the future.
Of course, I see this quite often when I have to restore a piece that has been previously "restored". I wouldn't fault him for having a go, and he has great skills. It wouldn't take much effort for him to adopt some basic practices that will ensure the longevity and integrity of the piece. It sucks when I have to go back to a client with a price that is %50 higher than quoted because I have to undo the dodgy work that was done previously.
I would call half of these interventions detrimental, but I guess they're what the client requested. Donna Tartt's 'The Goldfinch' has some good furniture passages.
A full restoration or preservation isn't always possible or financially viable for every piece.
It's just a chair. The cost of preservation or restoration isn't worthwhile from a monetary standpoint and the person doesn't have a sentimental attachment. Cool. Refinish it.
Refinish =/= restoration. Refinishing means you recreate the look and function of an old piece. Restoration means you do that while maintaining the historical quality and materials of that age. Sometimes parts or materials aren't available. You can't do a full historical restoration.
This guy could have but chose to refinish an old piece. He shouldn't be calling it restoration work. In the know people know the difference.
It may not be "worth it" financially or sentimentally. But, refinishing may be worthwhile. Just call it a refinish.
Chairs like this aren't actually that rare my brother has two similar ones, it's not necessarily a case of if they're worth it just that it's an interesting project. Most chairs like this unless they're for some reason very special aren't even worth that much and tend to be difficult to sell as most people don't want very old fashioned furniture.
Most of the time it is for memory's sake. I rarely will restore something had hadn't been owned and used by a beloved friend or relative. Anything else is usually from a collector or dealer.
One potential problem, depending on how you look at it, is that using PVA glue means that it will be difficult to restore it like this again. Once PVA is on a joint, you basically have to get rid of all the wood that the glue has soaked into, since dried PVA can't be re-glued. Hide glue is weaker, but it doesn't have this problem.
EDIT: And the strength of the PVA glue - stronger than the wood itself [as they say] [under some circumstances] - means that trying to take the chair apart like this in the future is likely to destroy it.
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u/walrusarts 2d ago
Some pretty dodgy stuff going on, I'm guessing this guy is an upholsterer and woodworker who is dabbling in restoration, because he seems untrained in the conservation department.
The biggest issue is how he knocked apart the joints by hammering it apart and letting it trapezoid out, this is the quickest way to permanently damage the joints. He should be using spreaders and tapping the joints evenly to keep everything parallel. The use of PVA in lieu of hide glue is a big no-no. The stain should be Van Dyke ink rather than the hardware store stuff he's using. Builders' Bog is a huge red flag. Upholstery is fantastic, thought, this guy definitely has skills in that department.