A pair of late Victorian mahogany balloon backs,part of a set of eight dining chairs.Made from fine Honduras Mahogany,these chairs are beautifully made and are of great quality.The makers label is still intact found underneath the back of the front rail.(please see photo)

One chair has a very bad break on the right-hand back upright,where the back and side rail meet with mortise and tenon joints.With this break the balloon back has also broken on the lower and upper section of the curve.

The second chair is less damaged with the top curve of the balloon back broken at the dowel joints.

A repair has been attempted some time ago on the first chair and unfortunately a modern synthetic glue has been used.Never use modern glues to repair Antique furniture,they tend to not be as effective and it makes it much harder to repair and restore the piece in the future.The old pearl glue is reversible and will soften with warm water,modern glues are not reversible and can only be removed through time consuming scraping with a chisel or scalpel.

The first stage is to carefully clean of the old glues from the damaged joints and glue back any loose small pieces.

More challenging restoration work from Furniture Restoration Manchester.