| 1. Fixing a broken chair | ||
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 | Is this chair a piece of junk or a hidden treasure? Well, to move it from the former category to the latter requires meticulous and professional know-how. Pierre's aim is to conserve as much of the original as possible. A missing leg is recreated. A broken leg is reinforced with a metal rod through its length. Loose joints are re-glued. Old dowels are stripped and re-glued. The inner frame is rebuilt to have the strength to take the upholstering staples. | |
 | Here the chair is fully repaired, awaiting finishing and upholstering. | |
 | Here is a detail showing the meticulous inserts necessary to stabilize the chair and prepare it for upholstering. | |
 | Here, finally, is the finished, re-upholstered chair ready for use. The back left leg had been the broken one in the initial "piece-of-junk" state. | |
 | A close-up of the finished chair. | |
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| 2. Replacing a damaged crown in an antique clock frame | ||
 | The value of an old antique clock was seriously marred by a damaged crown, charred in a fire. In the image, the damaged crown (or what was left of it) is above and the replacement crown built by Pierre (as yet unstained) is below. | |
 | Finally, here is the antique clock frame with its new crown installed (and waiting to be stained and finished). | |
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| 3. Fixing two broken parts in another antique clock | ||
 | Another antique clock was also marred by two damaged, but very intricate, carved, decorative parts. In the image, the light coloured parts are the restored sections in raw wood (prior to final finishing). | |
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| 4. Reproducing a small intricate lion-paw foot | ||
 | Another antique clock was missing one of its small lion-claw feet. A wax model was made from hard tooling resin to replicate the missing foot. From the wax model a mould was made for casting the final leg in a suitably hard from of plaster. | |
 | Here is the resulting lion-claw-foot casting, ready for any type of finishing desired. | |
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| 5. Reproducing antique table legs but longer | ||
 | A client had several antique tables. Very beautiful -- but too low. Lots of customers were interested but they all wanted the same tables but higher. So Pierre took one of the original legs (stained second from the left) and reproduced for longer copies in raw mahogany -- first carefully tapering them on his lathe and then doing the grooves on his router. | |
 | Here's a close up of one of the new legs (at the right) upside down on its capital. To match the six grooves around the tapering leg Pierre had to design and construct a special jig to use with his router. | |
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