How to fix a carved knuckle on a Chippendale Chair

One of my dining room armchairs in tiger maple suffered a chipped knuckle when a friend inadvertently caught it on the door frame when moving it, and it took a dime-sized chunk out of the edge of the knuckle. The chip was lost (REAL easy to fix if you have the chip) and my wife asked me if I could touch it up. So this afternoon's project was just that. But instead of a color touch-up I decide to make a permanent repair. Its not that hard to do, so I thought I would document the procedure in case someone else runs into a similar situation.

First, use epoxy putty to rebuild the area. Knead up a small batch, and keep your fingers wet with water to assist in molding to the area. Get is as close the original contours as possible, erring on the side of overbuilding it rather than under-building. Easy to work with for the first 10 minutes. Once you have it molded into place, go find something else to do until its fully dry.

Sand down the edges using 100 grit sandpaper initially, then switch to 400 grit after most the cutting down is done. You have to flair the sanding into the surrounding finish to get it smooth to the touch. There should be no bumps. I lost part of my carving, so I had to re-carve into the putty on the side using an Exact-O knife and some broken down sandpaper to smooth the edges.

Once I'm satisfied with the sanding and carving detail (20 minutes), I'm ready to repair the finish. First I use Paste Varnish (poly based) over the whole knuckle to seal it up and give me a smooth color base. Its just a wipe-on product. That makes it look great, but is not heavy enough to color the putty.

For the final color step I get a tube on artist oil 'Burnt Umber' (do not use Acrlic, it won't work!) and lay a paste area onto the surface, blending with a rag.

Done! (well almost) artist oil is very slow drying, so I'll put a little clear sealer on it in 24 hours.

Here's the finished repair (right side of the knuckle has the repair - you can see a dark line at about 30 degrees in the midpoint of the knuckle and that's the start of the putty). I forgot to take a before photo! Total working time on the repair, about 90 minutes (not including dry times).

My wife said 'Wow, how did you do that?'

I replied "Been 25 years in the furniture business" <g>

Good job! I would have been pretty nervous to attempt that. Gorgeous chair by the way!