Seat Repair Progress and Reassembly

But first...

Satisfying the irresistible urge to put something back together!  LOL!

(Note:  The brace part of the grab handle will be covered with upholstery and was not surfaced.  The visible grab handle has had all the rust pitting filled.)

The corner bracket on the back of the board holds the side and back together, and provides a mount for the upper back board.  The bolt spins in the hole so I'll have to dowel the hole and re-drill it.

The Bottom Frame

Damage to the bottom seat frame is pretty minimal, but of course, it's much newer than the rest of the seat!  Be that as it may, the frame was replaced with a soft wood that didn't hold fasteners very well.  Add that to the fact that all the fasteners on the seat seem to be about one size too small...

Anyway, there were signs that a knock to the board that the lights are shining on might result in a piece of the board splitting off for kindling.  The vertical panels are screwed to this board from underneath.  The clamp is holding a split through a screw hole together.  The split is about 6" long, heading inexorably toward the edge of the board.I filled all the screw holes with Liquid wood and let the resin soak into the surrounding wood for awhile before draining it.

Otherwise, the lights are just shining on some cosmetic work...the end grain in these areas is very "ridgey" and ugly.

The bottom frame repairs have been sanded smooth and wood sealer applied.

Now I am starting to enjoy the process of putting the pieces back together!

The left side panel has repairs curing, and the more extensively damaged back panel is waiting for a fresh supply of repair material.

The left side of the seat has gone through the same procedures as the right.

Now it's time to do something about the "powderpost" bug damage to the rear panel.








The Lower Back Panel

I'm now ready to take on the heavily bug-damaged lower seat back panel.  Some people will think I'm nuts for thinking I can fix this with epoxy, but in fact, I am absolutely certain that the repairs will be permanent.

Since I've never encountered boring insect damage before, I decided to learn something about The Enemy.  The main thing that I learned is that those tiny shot holes that I have circled are not ENTRY holes, but rather EXIT holes, made by the mature beetle.  They could have been munching away at the starch in the wood for as much as 2-3 years!  The large encircled area is excavation that was uncovered by blasting the surface with compressed air.  There are also exit holes on the exterior surface that are almost certainly connected to the inner surface of the wood.  I tested all the surrounding area of these holes with a knife and the wood is solid and not punky or hollow feeling anywhere.  The tunnels will be packed with "frass", a euphemism for bug poop, which looks like ultra-fine sawdust.

There is extensive nail damage to the panel edges.  I'll spend tomorrow injecting the damage with thinned resin, and build out the missing wood with epoxy putty.

It will be interesting to see if any of the resin, injected from the inside surface, tries to drain out the other side! (Update:  It did not.)










Repairs...

As if bug and hardware damage were not enough, atmospheric conditions - heat/cold and damp/dry cycles - wreak their own special havoc on wood.  On an old buggy seat, this is a familiar sight, a corner joint that has pulled apart over time, leaving an ugly gap.  Then, of course, the replacement bottom frame was almost certainly not an EXACT copy of the original, so the dimensions could be slightly different.  I also think that the slight stain visible along the edge of the board suggests that there was originally a metal plate covering up the joint.  This was pretty common on this class of vehicle.  I'm guessing it was rusted through and removed during the last "restoration".  Such a plate could have covered up an inexactly fitted joint.

The left corner is still a good, tight fit, but the right corner is a very loose fit.


The seat on my last project  makes this problem look absolutely trivial.  There was a considerable gap between the upper and lower seat back panels that was the result of a less-than-perfect replacement of the lower panel.

I decided on this project, to use the same technique I'd used to fill the gap on the previous project.  That repair, by the way, is still invisible.

In preparation, I applied plastic packaging tape to all surfaces that I did not want Abatron to stick to!  I applied a very thin coat of Vaseline to the plastic to act as a release agent.

Then I began drizzling Liquid Wood into damaged areas and end grain on the right end.  The Abatron instantly showed bug tunnels just under the surface by turning them dark!

I stayed with this phase until penetation slowed down so much that I figured the LW was just soaking into sound wood.

Wood Epox is applied thickly over end grain and repairs...

Then the panel was bolted and screwed tightly into place!  The Wood Epox remains workable long enough to allow me to bolt the panel up, then sculpt the damaged corner to fill all the gaps in the joint between the back and side panels.

Do I roll a great joint or what?!

I went out to feed the horses and clean the barn, and when I got back in, the WE had set up enough to cautiously remove the panel from the seat.

The result is a nearly perfect impression of the mating surfaces of the joint.

Tomorrow I will sand these repairs smooth, then give the left hand side of the board the same treatment.

Same repair...

...other end.

Interior...

...exterior.












2/2/17 Update...

I eventually came to the realization that this panel, along with the bottom seat frame, is also a replacement and not original.  For the longest time, I couldn't account for the mismatch in the corners, even after epoxy repairs.  Then I realized that the panel is a very close, but imperfect, reproduction of the original.  The angles of the corners are simply mismatched, partly because this replacement piece does not have the subtle convex curve of the original.  Fortunately, the epoxy repair will allow me to shape the ends of this panel to match the side panels.  Curiously, this is the second carriage in a row that I've restored, which had a replacement panel that did not match the sides.  It must be a vulnerable piece.

The last phase of repairs to this board is to fill the beetle exit holes on the exterior surface.  I've filled these holes dozens of times with thinned resin.  Today I filled them with full strength resin (the thinned stuff never stopped soaking in!) and capped off the holes with WoodEpox.

And Finally...

Eventually, the beetle damage repairs set up and were sanded flush.  The panel was smeared with spot putty and all the grain, nicks and scratches were sanded level with the surface.  I set the panel aside to unclamp the upper seat back panel  (it was clamped to prevent twisting), and had the paint stripped very quickly.

Unlike the other boards on the seat, there is not a speck of actual damage on this board.  Even upholstery tack holes were minimal.

However, as I was working on the board, filling grain, etc. it became obvious that the board was trying to twist!  I rushed through my work!  I clamped the board to the work bench to sand the grain filler and coat the board with wood sealer.

I brought each board into the house when they were barely dry.  There was a bit of a struggle to get the corners of the lower panels to line up but eventually, they were permanently bolted and screwed together.

Despite my fears, the hardware on the upper panel plopped right together with the matching brackets on the lower panels!  There is no distortion anywhere.

So now, the seat can hibernate in the office for the rest of the winter, until painting season arrives!

There are still lots of little things to do, plus plenty of sanding before painting!

But for now, this part of the "restoration" work is done.

The next project is the wagon's tail gate!  Really, it's the only other part of the wagon that exhibits real damage, in the form of split wood.  Lots of rusty iron to clean up, too!

(Update...I could not have been more mistaken about an apparent lack of damage to the wagon box!)