Been a while....

Greetings all. Yes, I know it's been a while but the restoration world around me has gone bonkers. I'm extremely happy (yet stressed) that everyone on the planet has had their clumsy pills. Anyways, have some photos of the recent works I have been doing, they range from Antiquities through to the 1960's.

Enjoy (there will be brief descriptions attached to each photo)

Greek Kylix (smashed handle)

Satsuma export ware from about 1920

African ebony sculpure that fell down some stairs and ended up in 15 pieces

Shiwan scholar getting a new earlobe and some new fingers

A hideous Deco chalkware lamp

Another Shiwan scholar, the base was smashed into, well, dust.

A Ushabti 200BC. Cleaned and stabilised, made the stand as well.

Thanks for dropping by and having a look at a few of the things that I've been up to. I would post more photos but I have to go off to work on that Ming bowl, 2 Sung dynasty vases, a Meiji censor, a Meiji butsodan, this that and the other.....

New Studio

Hello all and sundry, hope everything is going well and dandy for you all. As you can guess from the title, I have a new, larger, studio. It's awesome. Polished floorboards and the works, new stuff galore and enjoying it immensely. Finally feeling like an established studio.

I have been extremely busy of late, hence the lack of posts, but I will try and make up for it in the next few months. Considering my computer is in my studio now I may even try to figure out how to do a live feed from here... could be interesting.

Anyways, have some photos of recent stuff....

Bohemian porcelain basket, somewhat damaged. (before)

Porcelain Basket drying (after)

I have been working on a lot of private collections that predominantly deal with antiquities, sadly I am not allowed to photograph them to display publicly, but when I do get another chance to do so, I will.

Porcelain Candleabra that was dropped (before)

Porcelain Candleabra finished (after)

Thank you all from dropping by and having a looksee. Feel free to comment or to drop me a line via gmail.

Cahl.

Augustus Moreau Statue

Hi all, been too busy to blog, sorry, I'm a bad person. Now that I am forgiven have a look at this statue by Aug. Moreau. It was a mess. It's still not complete ( I have yet to inform the owner that it is missing some wings, a marble stand and a huge chalice) but I repaired the parts that were not coping so well with its strange, altered existence.

The right arm at the shoulder had been cracked and restored rather nicely but new fissures had opened. Same with the left leg at the knee and of course, the base was somewhat separated.

I had to cut through the base, at the foot and I discovered that about 3/4 of it was car bog and a half inch bolt that was placed within the bog was designed to stabilise the whole piece, it's a heavy piece, probably 5kgs or so, bronze be like that.

I had to dig out all the old restoration and rebuild it with stronger materials.....

Getting to that bolt was a nightmare. Who knew that car bog could be such a hassle to remove?

I re-used the original bolt, it's a restorers thing. I try and keep as much of the pieces history intact. That and it was a modern stainless steel marine bolt. That won't be breaking in a hurry. Better than those wrought iron nightmares that I've had to work on in the past.

my ice cream fell on the footpath. boo.

So, after holding this piece until it set, 1 hour later, thank you, it looked like everything was going to be smooth sailing. Guess what? It was. Phew. So after the pain of sanding the piece for about 3 hours I added the undercoat and moved on to the final patina. It's a process called, "Johanning", don't ask, long story. Anyways here is the finished piece, completed, as long as you don't know that the wings are missing and so on and so forth....

My ice cream is just next to that piece of jade!

Anyways, thanks for dropping by and have another look at my blogness thing, I will try and be a better person and update you lot more often. Till then, have fun. Break some stuff for me.

Cahl.