WoodDance Studio

I’ve been in the shop again. Fixing damage to several different old pieces of furniture. In a most unfortunate slip, someone fell and smashed a 200 year old table. I repaired the table and using a piece broken off inside a mortise was able to patch a spot with same wood. The photo below shows a Dremel tool being used to grind away nails inside the mortise from a previous repair. This table had been broken more than once before.

With the table stronger than ever and returned, I started on a quick bed post repair which I truly enjoyed. It didn’t take long to turn this project around. I used a lathe to create a new pin in an old mahogany finial.

The gallery of photos shows how I step by step fixed a broken dowel which was part of the original turned finial.

• I cut off the broken peg flush with the finial base and also removed the end broken off in the bed post.

• Using a block of walnut stock – (Sorry, I know it’s a mahogany bed but walnut was on hand) I turned a blank peg larger than the 3/4″ peg diameter.

• Into the new peg blank, about 1″ thick, I cut down a length to the 3/4″ thickness and chopped off my replacement dowel.

• I inserted the 3/4″ end with glue into the finial.

• Centering the old finial, whose chuck marks easily aligned on the lathe, I spun the whole assembly.

• Cutting the peg to 3/4″ while spinning, allowed for a precisely centered peg.