Quality Concerns | The specialists guide to Chinese antiques

How to avoid cracking and splitting in Chinese solid wood furniture

Lacquered Furniture? Then wood frame construction with MDF panels is probably the correct choice.

“Is that a crack?” About once a week, I am asked this question. Some of the times, its about furniture which has been purchased elsewhere. Other times its about our own furniture. It might have been custom made or simply the customer purchased it from from a moving sale. Some pieces might have traveled the globe and eventually landed in a dry climate – a once beautiful stable piece, is now turning into a cracking, splitting mess. But rest assured, at least once a week, I am asked this question.

Solid wood/old wood vs. veneer and composites

When making furniture,
the first question one must ask is, do you want solid wood or are composite woods also acceptable.

Solid wood furniture is strong, long lasting and can be re-sanded, re-finished and re-stained for years to come. That’s the good news. The bad news is, this comes at a price. Since wood is a natural, living, breathing material, it therefore has a tendency to swell / shrink, warp and/or crack as it ages, in relation to environmental changes in temperature and humidity. In door environments, in particular modern homes where dry electric heat is used, will accelerate this process. If the furniture is painted or lacquered, this presents an even bigger problem as the lacquer covering the outer surface will crack (often badly) when the wood underneath expands and contracts.

How to avoid cracking and splitting in Chinese solid wood furniture

Reclaimed wood waiting to be used in furniture making

One way furniture makers attempt to compensate for this by using aged wood and reclaimed wood. While all wood, including old wood continues to breathe and change, unlike new wood, old wood has (theoretically) already reached its critical drying point over many, many years. Unfortunately access to reclaimed wood depends on the supply of old wood (often from buildings) which may not always be available in large quantities. Aged wood may also have a certain amount of dents, nicks and other characteristics that come along with age. And because its still real wood, this means it will still breath and change to some extent.

A second method of compensation is by using air dried or kiln-dried wood. Air dried wood, which has been exposed to outside air for extended periods of time, is often harder, though tends to have a higher moisture content and may take months or even years to dry. Kiln dried wood can be ready to use in under a month, but is softer as the artificial heating process stops the wood from naturally hardening any further. The heating process may also cause defects in the wood such as the “honey comb effect.” Unfortunately many smaller factories do not have kilns as the process is costly and requires specialized technical expertise. Even large modern factories shipping 200 containers a month may find running their kilns to be expensive and technical. Therefore because Kiln dried wood must be either pre-purchased or sent out for drying, air drying is the most common method in use for smaller workshops.

Stacks of burlwood veneer 273x300 How to avoid cracking and splitting in Chinese solid wood furniture

Stacks of "burlwood" veneer ready for use in furniture making

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Guide to buying Chinese Antiques on eBay

The Brutal Truth about Buying Chinese Antiques on eBay

This is a great little guide from an ebay seller who goes by the screen name of loveshackbaybee. Its fairly comprehensive and worth a reprint here. Well written, very candid and overall good advice for the masses looking to pick up that “authentic Qing Dynasty vase at a great price!” I added some screen shots as well of some so called “authentic Asian antiques” which are currently on offer on ebay.

As long time collectors of Asian art, we have purchased many authentic and truly remarkable Chinese antiques on eBay. You can too. But fair warning – you need to really understand how this fraud riddled business works – or you will most certainly be ripped off.

Here is a summary of years of hard learned experience.FACT # 1 – EXPORTATION OF GENUINE ANTIQUES FROM CHINA IS TIGHTLY CONTROLLED.

It is highly illegal for sellers based in the Peoples Republic of China, Hong Kong, or Taiwan Republic of China, to export very old Chinese antiques out of their respective countries. These countries have enacted strict Cultural Preservation laws designed to keep their national heritage at home.

In the Peoples Republic of China, exporting anything earlier than 1796 (the end of the reign of Emperor Qianlong) is strictly forbidden. Items dating from 1797 to 1949 must be inspected for approval, and most often Imperial or other culturally important pieces are prohibited from exportation. In Taiwan, anything 100 years or older cannot be exported. In the Peoples Republic of China, the penalties for smuggling “Cultural Relics” are severe. Lengthy imprisonment, and even in serious cases execution. The Government of the Peoples Republic of China doesn’t fool around -they execute grave robbers. This is well documented – look it up on the internet.

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Furniture Repairs: Improper restoration causes this “Old Shanghai” table-top to buckle and split

(Click images to enlarge)

Question:

A reputable local beijing based antique Chinese furniture dealer sold us this nice Chinese table. It cracked a few months after getting it. He has his own shop to produce furniture as well as sell antiques. I am sending you 3 photos, 1 of each side of the table, and 1 of the whole thing. So there are really 2 large cracks in this poor beautiful old table. Can it be repaired rather than replace the top?

Answer:

Its hard to tell exactly from the photos (which are not so clear) but from what I can see, it looks like this is a colonial old Shanghai (also known as Lao Shanghai) art deco style table. The sides seem missing as normally this style of table has four “pointed” corner plates on the sides which when pulled up/opened (kind of like a drop leaf table) make the table square instead of hexagonal. Maybe they were missing when the item was collected in un-restored form, or maybe it was just too much trouble to replace/repair them. Who knows…

Also, again, its hard to tell from the photos but I think there are probably a number of portions of this piece which are completely new, though I cannot say at what percent without clearer photos. One of the legs “feels” new. I have seen the delicate tops buckle sometimes on un-restored colonial style tables over time, so it would not be surprising if it needed to be repaired during restoration and this is where the problem seems to have occurred. Repairs are normal for this sort of furniture and whats important is not the repair but rather how it was repaired.

Seems the issue with the cracked and split top, is that when the top was repaired, in a few places it seems that new wood replacement boards (glued together) were used, instead of using properly dried wood, old aged wood or reclaimed wood. In door environments, in particular where dry electric heat is used can accelerate this sort of cracking.

That’s probably why the cracking occurred as the wood was still moist and not fully dried. With old and/or reclaimed wood where the wood has had plenty of time to dry this is much less of a problem. The choice of wood used for this section can also have an effect as some woods are more prone to cracking (like pine) then others.

Another give away here is the actual edges on the new boards, as well as the patina itself, don’t match the rest of the delicate nature of the piece. Notice the thickness? There is also visible saw marks in the new boards. In fact, it might not even be the same species of wood. The grain seems much courser on the new boards.

It can be repaired, though the damaged board most likely should be replaced with something a bit more appropriate to the piece and following the recommendations above.

Comparing apples to oranges – more on determining quality in Chinese antique furniture

Photos of these two cabinets have been floating around on our file server for quite a while and I have been meaning to put them up here as another excellent example of differences in quality between Chinese antique workshops and restoration as well as in Chinese Country Antique Furniture in general. These are both essentially the same piece but restored in a different manner by two different factories. They are both restored antiques, both a once fairly common Mongolian style antique cabinets and even the dimensions are approximately the same. Piece A (bright red one) comes from a smaller workshop owned/operated by George, a gentleman who has worked with Chinese antiques for more then 20 years. He services mostly foreign customers and says he offers “good quality.” The other piece (Deep burgundy red) was purchased from Raymond, a larger volume based, Beijing wholesaler who claims to offer “good quality product.” Lets examine the differences to see which factory really does offer “quality” and which one is simply inexpensive.

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Determining quality in antique furniture (What is Quality?)

A few interesting examples and baselines which can be used when making an assessment of quality. You will need to click each photo to see the enlarged verion and associated comments.

Poor to low quality

This piece speaks for itself. Particularly evident is fitting which uses the lowest quality of materials.

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The problem of “Chaobuduo” (and how it effects reproduction furnitures)

Chinese workers love to use the phrase ¨cha bu duo¨ (pronounced “Cha Boo Daul) which directly translates to ¨not very far off (meaning approximately or roughly)¨ Unfortunately, in almost all case it usually works out to be not even close, in otherwords, ”cha tai duo” (meaning way too far off). Workers see no need for exact matches and approximations are always seen as “close enough.”

In fact, at times it almost seems like Chinese workers pride themselves on their ability to do things as ”cha ba duo” as humanly possible – as if there is some secret, unspoken competition to see just how far you can go while still getting away with it. Will they accept 80% correct? 70%? What about close but not exact?

Some real world effects of “Chaobuduo” on our industry:

The stool, bench or chair, which does will not balance evenly on the floor (probably when you were pointing this out at the factory, you were told “don’t worry, its not the chairs feet but the rough floor of the factory which is uneven.)

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