ttalma
Well-known member
I am currently restoring a chest of drawers my wife found on Craigslist. Alot more work that it's worth, but she fell in love with it. I had to plane 1/16" off the top of the chest to get Amy's name out. The drawers are in good shape and only needed a little work. The case is solid and well built, but the cross banded veneer was in rough shape. To make things worse someone did a real half-a$$ job of a restoration and made the work twice as hard. The case is made from walnut, poplar, pine, and cherry, with the front veneered walnut. The case was dyed deep red to look like mahogany, and someone sanded through the dye on one side, slopped on some poly and gave up.
I am dating the piece to around 1820, there are no marks from power tools only hand tools. The screws are machine made, but are the flat tip style. The wood is all local to NY and I think the chest was local (Rochester NY) made, as Rochester was doing quite well at the time. But since the erie canal came right through the city, it may be from somewhere else in NY. The hardware that was on the chest were some cheapies from a hardware store. I am thinking the originals were glass.
I thought everyone might like to see the New York construction style, as opposed to some of the other styles posed in other threads.
Here's a link to the pics:
https://www.dropbox.com/gallery/14006061/1/NYchest?h=66553f
I like the last pic, it shows the fingerprints of the original finisher.
I am dating the piece to around 1820, there are no marks from power tools only hand tools. The screws are machine made, but are the flat tip style. The wood is all local to NY and I think the chest was local (Rochester NY) made, as Rochester was doing quite well at the time. But since the erie canal came right through the city, it may be from somewhere else in NY. The hardware that was on the chest were some cheapies from a hardware store. I am thinking the originals were glass.
I thought everyone might like to see the New York construction style, as opposed to some of the other styles posed in other threads.
Here's a link to the pics:
https://www.dropbox.com/gallery/14006061/1/NYchest?h=66553f
I like the last pic, it shows the fingerprints of the original finisher.