I posted a series of what I referred to as odd ball projects on Facebook recently and I thought that some of those images as well as others would show the variety of work that I've done over the years. While I have worked on countless pieces of English, American and French 18th century furniture over the years, a degree of discretion is necessary because the work was done for antique dealers. The work was done to the highest standards but showing someone else's furniture in a state of disrepair needs to be done without hurting anyone's ability to sell an object. For the most part I thought I would post images of projects that were not the ordinary restoration work I do like patching losses, structural work and finish work. With a few exceptions these are non-furniture projects. Many of these images were shot on standard film and not of the highest quality, my apologies for some of them but in most cases they are the only images I have of an unusual project. I thought it might be interesting to see the object despite the less than ideal quality of the photograph. I'll include descriptions with the images.
This is a set of regimental drums that I restored sitting on a minimal stand that I built. The drums are English and date to the 1850's or so. I worked on several drums like these over the years.
This early bicycle I believe is French and dates from 1840-1860 . I'm no expert on this subject but that is what I've been able figure out from my modest research. I did some minor restoration to the bicycle and made some ebonized brackets to display it on the wall.
This is a tabernacle that I built for the Catholic Church to loosely match the oldest tabernacle in the United States. The original is in Maryland and a photograph of it will follow. The clients kept wanting me to water down the design but I really wanted to be fairly accurate. This image shows the piece near completion. I hadn't applied the bronze mounts yet and I still needed to turn a finial to match the original which I also gilded. They had put a drawer pull on top of the dome for some reason. I also turned a series of details above all the capitals. The side opens up to store the objects used for the Eucharist. The key to lock the door can be seen in the photograph.
The original tabernacle sitting in a slightly undignified way, on a filing cabinet in Baltimore. I believe it dates to around 1680.
A broken pediment for a George III breakfront bookcase. It arrived in a box containing hundreds of pieces.
Repairing the broken fretwork.
Restored pediment.
The tallest things I've ever turned are these bedposts for this bed I made 15 years ago. The posts are 8 feet tall and are based on a pattern in Hepplewhite's pattern book. While the painting isn't to my taste, it isn't all that different from the green and white painted furniture that Chippendale made for David Garrick.
The smallest turning I ever executed was this imitation ivory pull (one of about 4) that I made for a snooker board. I placed a dime in the photo for scale. Something like 5/8 of an inch long by 1/16 of an inch.
This is one of four feet that I turned and carved for a low bed based on several Indian examples. The form is reminiscent of Indian glass and bidri ware hukah basses of the 18th century.
I made many display stands for a wide variety of objects when I first arrived in California. This one is relatively simple ebonized stand to hold a pierced metal fish ( maybe a weathervane).