An Elephant Fell On It, really!

  I have been making repairs to wooden products at 10,000 Villages in Hamilton for a couple of years now.  It has involved re-gluing, refinishing and in a couple of case re-building all sorts of things from toys, to boxes to a large cabinet. It is probably my favourite form of volunteer work, the folks at 10,000 Villages are unfailingly grateful and undemanding about how quickly I get things repaired.  So most recently I got an email saying that a sewing box needed repair because an elephant had fallen on it. How many wood workers get to do elephant related repairs in their life time?

  That is the sewing box, hiding the problems caused by the falling elephant.

  There are in fact three things that need repair. A foot was broken off, which the folks at the store cleverly saved for me to reattach. 

you can see the left foot and where the right foot belongs.

The crack on the top is going to require some filling, gluing and clamping and at my best I can't make  the repair invisible.

  I have some pieces of sheesham wood that will enable me to make some filler that is 'sort of' the right colour, and then I will stain the section again to try and blend things so that the repair is not too obvious.

  The big problem is the handle, it is held on with nails and they've been torn right out of the box on one side and twisted pretty good on the other.

  Unlike the last box I repaired I will be able to get this taken apart and repaired with relative ease.  Once it is glued, drilled and screwed together I will touch up the stain if necessary and take the repaired item back to the store.

  On my last blog I wrote about a tricky repair on an Indian Box, I got the box fixed, but it involved in insertion of a very obvious brass pin rather than the hidden fastener that had broken off.  I am of the belief that if you can't hide your joinery, or the repair than make what you've ended up doing look intentional. It is the "if you can't hide it, flaunt it school of wood work".

  Shortly I will be able to post the photos of my latest project, it has taken up several days of designing, building, carving and finishing but since it is a gift for someone that reads the blog I can't talk about it just yet.  

cheers, ianw

       George Clooney's got nothing on me!