Note: We are adding older projects and updating (recreating) some which
were previously posted because they were written at a time when tags
and other web-based items were not offered on WordPress.
This is one of them, and the older post was deleted to make room for this post.
MPF Conservation conserved and/or restored many pieces of Mason Monterey furniture which were bought for the Chateau at the Oregon Caves National Monument (NPS).
MPF Conservation had eleven A-frames to repair and restore. Some were museum pieces to be displayed in the Museum; but some, like the A-Frames shown above, were destined to go back on the floor for visitors to enjoy.
We assisted the curator, Mary Merryman, in choosing the pieces to be treated with an eye for efficiency of treatment, and confirming her assessment of which should go into the museum versus back onto the floor, or which should be conserved versus restored in this instance.
Conserved pieces would be cleaned and minimally repaired to become part of the museum collection, never to be used again.
Pieces chosen for the floor would be fully restored, including paint (if necessary), upholstery, and occasionally structurally reinforced for stability during use.
SPANISH RED MASON MONTEREY A-FRAME #441
This page features the Mason Monterey Spanish Red A-Frame #441, shown above before and after restoration.
Mason Monterey furniture does not always carry both the Monterey and the horseshoe stamp, or even one stamp, and so we will begin with an overview of the history to explain.
HISTORY
The style was derived from Spanish Colonial, Dutch Colonial, Pennsylvania Dutch, California Mission architecture. It features cowboy accoutrements such as might be found in a barn (lariats and branding irons), and was meant to reflect simple ranch furnishings.
Most Mason Monterey furniture was stamped with a burned in horseshoe and the name, “Monterey”, shown above left, but not all, so it is conceivable someone might have authentic Mason Monterey with no stamp. From time to time the inversion layers in downtown Los Angeles would be overwhelming, holding a dense layer of smog close to the ground, and they would stop using the branding irons for the day.
In this case of the Spanish Red A-frame #441, both were present.
HOW THEY CAME TO BE DAMAGED
The A-Frames had been stripped in an unusual manner. A heavy snowstorm with many inches of packed snow was present at the Chateau at the caves. An unexpected turn came when the weather suddenly warmed, and snow quickly melted, causing a flood of sorts which swept through the dining room at the Chateau and sent most of the A-frames in the dining room crashing out the large glass window and into the ravine below.
Due to weather and the treacherous terrain in winter, no one was sent to retrieve the furniture. They overwintered under many feet of snow, and when the snow melted they were brought up to the basement of the Chateau to gently warm under the knowledgeable eyes of the Curator. However, due to the fall and the overwintering, most had suffered paint losses and many splits and breaks.
BEFORE
The chair looked like the images above and right, stripped of color, broken, fractured, and rickety.
TREATMENT
EXCAVATION
We disassembled the frame by injecting warmed white vinegar into the joints, shown above left in our studio.
In the process we discovered traces of red on the tops of legs and the splat, confirming our suspicion that chair #441 was Spanish Red.
Note the splat was historically shimmed using linen muslin, shown left.
An employee used a screw to hold the front left-facing leg in place, shown above center; this led to or exacerbated the split seat.
The rear right-facing leg would not release; we left it intact throughout the treatment.
The A-frame was disassembled and ready to begin reparation, right.
WOODWORKING REPAIRS
A test run of chair #441 was performed, shown left, making sure that at the critical time the gluing would happen without incident; this was done on all the A-frames before glue-up.
Before reassembling, the various damaged parts of #441 were repaired.
BACK CREST AND STILES
Mitchell repaired the back crest and stiles, above. He drilled out the broken dowels, and cleaned the mortise to accept new hide glue. He then inserted a fresh hardwood dowel after coating it with warm hide glue, with additional glue dropped into the mortise.
There were several splits in the crest, above. When the breaks were old and appeared to hold debris, they were properly cleaned before gluing. Clean splits were glued using warm hide glue and clamped to cure.
THE SEAT
The seat was fractured around two leg mortise on the right-facing side. Mitchell planned where they keylocks were to be placed, above.
Note: Meanwhile, keylocks were created and waiting for
use on all the A-Frame seats; see below “KEYLOCKS & KERFS”.
The seat was prepared for gluing. The fractured edges of the seat were prepped: they were smoothed, then test-matched in anticipation of gluing, above.
Parts were matched and glued as part of the prep of the entire glue-up.
A new part was created for the seat by Brian Petrowski, not shown. It is the small area to the side of the seat that holds the the back stiles in place through the use of hide glue, and eventually they are screwed into the seat with the large historic screws.
Finally, the parts were repaired and the seat could be assembled. Ample warm hide glue was used, shown above and below; excess was wiped down after clamping with a warm wet rag.
The chair seat was set into the padded glue-up jig and squeezed snugly with clamps, pushing excess glue out.
MPFC was ready to move to the legs / mortise connections while the clamped seats stayed in stasis for several days. Note the leg mortise repairs, below; once they were completed the seats were finished.
KEYLOCKS & KERFS
MPFC had him create them in two sizes to fit two areas of repair, shown left. The small ones were made for the times when a seat was fashioned of two small boards such as is shown below in image five.
The NPS contract would not allow items to leave the studio without one of us, and we wanted examples for Brian, Mitchell joined Brian his woodworking studio creating templates, keylocks and kerfs for all the chairs, shown right.
Note: Above images are of a Smokey Maple A-Frame seat having its keylocks installed, and after installation, left.
Left, the fine tuning work began on the keylocks for chair #441, with Mitchell sanding the edges of a keylock.
These were inserted underneath the seat along the split, insuring it did not split again.
The underside had four keylock mortise routed, then hand-chiseled. Four keylocks were sanded to fit the mortise, and glued into the holes using hide glue.
After the glue cured, four keylocks were planed to the historic under-seat surround. The seat was now stable.
LEG MORTISE REPAIRS
Many mortise were compromised and repaired as needed to ensure a snug fit around the legs. Thin veneer was glued into loose mortise using hide glue to act as a shim, not shown.
LEG TENON REPAIRS
A pile of historic kerfs after removal, left.
Kerfs are inserted between tenon walls and used to secure the leg tenon by pushing against the tenon walls.
Two legs showed additional damaged: One was splitting, and one had a screw, which we discusse earlier. These needed reparation along with a new kerf.
The leg tenon above was splitting; a crack had developed and was moving down into the body of the leg.
The historic kerf was removed, and the sides were planed, removing old hide glue in the process. A thick chisel was used as a wedge to open the split just enough to allow hide glue to saturate into the split. A 1/4-inch dowel (a previous attempt at a repair) was also removed, a clean hole was drilled, and the new hole was filled with a hard dowel. The dowel was trimmed, and the leg was ready for its new life.
Left, the pieces of the chair (stiles not shown) which were repaired, curing. They will be ready for re-assembly using new kerfs, below.
Step one, all the legs were inserted into the underside of the seat mortise. Warm hide glue, was applied in the mortise and on the tenon outside and inside.
The seat was righted, and new kerfs covered with hide glue were driven into the leg tenons until they were snug and could take no more kerfs, above right.
The next day the kerfs were cut using a Japanese saw, then leveled, above.
THE BACK: STILES AND SPLAT
Stiles were repaired during assembly in a similar manner to the leg tenons with a hardwood dowel, not shown. When cured, they were attached to the outside of each side of the seat, shown right. New holes were bored, and the historic screws & bolts were applied.
Splat was attached to the seat mortise using warm hide glue, above. MPFC chose to follow Mason’s original decision to use muslin as a shim, rather than a modern traditional lamination of wood veneer to take up any gap between wood surfaces. Because of the softer more bruisible nature of alder and the inherent flexible nature of the construction design MPFC decided the addition of hard lamination surfaces might damage the historic wood.
A long clamp gently pushed the splat into place, and was a gentler method than tamping it hard with a mallet. A mallet gently worked the splat into the mortise by tapping on one side, then the other, above.
Strategic clamps held the crest in stasis while the glues sat for several hours, shown left.
The back of the chair was attached.
In some cases we set large bags of sand on the seats of the chairs.
Once the chair cured, we were ready for the finish restoration, shown left and below.
The clamps were removed, and the chair was sent to the finish room, where it was sanded to an acceptable grit to accept paint. The chair was primed with gesso, above.
Base coats were applied, ivory for the splat, and red for the body of the chair, shown above. We used Gamblin Artist Colors: 1980 Oil Colors. The 1980 line is less expensive (I think of them as a student grad oil paint), which are great for furniture as they still have good pigment load.
We used a bass wood test board, which mimicked the original wood grain and color; we made two, one for our records and one for the NPS. This eventually served as a record and sample of the actual 1980 Oil Colors we used on each chair.
Some base coat colors required more than one coat of paint for coverage, and each coat had to dry thoroughly between coats. In the image top right the red has only one coat on and you can see it is streaked, but after two coats it had a proper glossy appearance.
Kate used artists brushes between 1/2-inch and 1-inch wide. These are smaller brushes than most people use on furniture, but her control was excellent, and because of this she avoided drips and so forth. For the small longer time it takes painting, there was no sanding, scraping, dripping, etc. When each coat was dry, Kate was able to move straight to the next coat.
She carefully traced the back splat, taking notes, shown middle image above.
She saved the first tracing, and made working templates to transfer the image, without the notes, to the inside back splat, far right above and right.
For each chair notes were made for the paint colors which had to be mixed and applied, and the order of their application, shown left. The process had to planned in advance, because Kate was painting a dozen chairs, not just one, and this way she could keep track of what colors she was using on a given day.
Layers of decorative 1980 Oil Colors paint was mixed to match the various colors of the splat, and bass wood sample boards were made for all finish colors mixed and use. In the end a large book was presented to the NPS of all our notes, original samples sheets, and templates so someone in the future would be able to repair another Mason piece.
First coats: chair #441 was laid onto its back, and the splat was painted using both brushes and fingertips in the order shown above, then allowed to cure over many days.
Second coat, above. Between colors several days had to pass so the paint was dry enough that it would not move if a brush touched it by accident.
Third coat, above. The layers were applied as shown, drying completely between coats as necessary. Brush work and finger painting created the designs, as Kate interpreted the historic splat strokes.
Above image number four, three steps of the splat completed before we began the overall Smokey Maple top coat, below.
The undercoat of Smokey Maple was applied by hand on the splat, both outside and inside back, above. Kate used Gamblin’s Galkyd and the Smokey Maple formula, and worked the dense to clear coat which was mixed on the chair.
A final Smokey Maple glaze top coat was painted on the entire chair, and allowed to cure for a week.
A glossy coat of Galkyd was placed over the entire chair for strength, and allowed to cure for several days. This idea was based upon a test done by one of Gamblin’s partners, Pete Cole, using Galkyd on his Bicycle and riding it through Portland weather for many weeks. Galkyd stood up to weather abuse!
The final coat was a dark carnauba-rich wax, applied then hard burnished, and allowed to cure.
The Spanish Red Mason Monterey A-Frame chair completed!
Kate and Mitchell Powell of MPF Conservation greeting people at the opening!
AFTER
The Spanish Red A-frame turned out beautifully, and it was hard to imagine the stripped damaged chair transformed into this sturdy colorful piece.
I don’t think most people realize how beloved the National Parks are by the people who work there — and by many visitors who come to visit or camp during the seasons.
Employees are proud of their park! When we delivered the Mason Monterey furniture, everyone who was able came to see it. (I plan on a post about the delivery eventually.)
I hope everyone realizes this in these tumultuous times.
Below a last look at Spanish Red A-Frame #441 during the opening, right, and installed at the Chateau, left.
If you love Monterey, follow the blog, as I will be posting other pieces.
SEVERAL OTHER MONTEREY POSTINGS:
And Mason Monterey’s kissing cousin, Del Rey (see parts 1 and 2):
Written by Kate Powell ©MPF Conservation.
May be printed for your own use ONLY, not for use on blogs without permission.
and may be reposted if our url + copyright is used as reference.
Your and Mitchell’s process of research, planning, testing and then the meticulous work involved is nothing short of amazing, Kate. I read every bit of this with a pretty good understanding of how much work was involved. I love the approach used to rebuild the mortises and repair the cracks. I winced when you mentioned the screw and nail someone had put in. I haven’t repaired much furniture (and never anything on a scale like this) but the worst part was undoing the repairs attempted by others. Kudos to you and Mitchell on a job well done. I echo your thoughts on the employees working in the National Parks. I hope they an recover from the poor treatment they’re receiving from the government.
Many thanks, Dan!
Yes, it never ceases to amaze me how innovative would-be fixer-upers can be. 🙂 If some glue is good, then lots of glue (usually several generations of who knows what) has got to be better. And for screws? Well. let me tell ya! Hmmm, how many sheet-rock screws can one get into a small mortise and tenon, anyway? Teeeheheeee; enough of my waxing silly!
As for our National Parks, we are worried. I was heartened to see that the Superintendent of Crater Lake recently resigned under protest. The problem, as I see it, with career rangers and supporting staffers leaving, the fresh hires may not have institutional views toward conservation and sustainability. This could end up being a very slippery slope until we hit a borrow which will allow us to come back to center.
Again, thanks, Dan, for your kind comments and commitment to sustainability and preservation.