Further Work on the Glastonbury Chair

Today we’ve continued with the Glastonbury chair refurb and repair job. This type of chair does not fold but was made for easy disassembly for transport purposes. And so to continue our analysis of possible repairs we took off the right hand side scissor legs. 

They were made as a dry fit 1/2 lap joint. If all the parts were disassembled it’d likely be a confusing task to put the whole thing back together. To aid reassembly the original maker marked the joints using a screwdriver as a punch. 
 
To the bottom right of the lower arm rest joint we can see 3 punch marks.

And here are the corresponding 3 marks on the top of the leg. 

If these were not there it’d be our task to mark the joints so it’d make our reassembly task easier. 

On the back of the chair there’s a decorative panel. Approximately 1/3rd is missing. This panel needed to come off for repair and we used some dining knives to prise apart the panel from the back. In any event this needed doing because the back itself was split. Interestingly, once the decorative panel was removed, a centre mark and drawn circle were revealed suggesting that some other motif was imagined by the maker.

From our stock of salvaged timber we’ve been looking for some oak timber that will be a best colour/patina match.  So far this is the best we’ve found.

There’ll be more on this as we progress. And whist we await another progress report here’s a nice detail to ponder.