Glowing wood mark of a fine polish> Waldoboro cabinetmaker finds a challenge in restoring fine furniture to its former glory and building designs of his own creation

The play of light on wood polished to a deep, soft glow is what Waldoboro cabinetmaker William Evans aims for, and invariably achieves, when he designs, builds, or restores a piece of fine furniture.

Evans, whose mother was from Bangor, is a master of veneered surfaces. In his large, airy cabinet shop, he builds superb copies of classic antique tables, chairs, beds, breakfronts, desks and boxes as well as custom-designed furniture and more contemporary pieces. Evans also restores quality antique furniture to its original glory. The beauty of the final product belies the enormous amount of time, painstaking work and patience required for such an endeavor.

“I’ve always thought that restoration is harder than building something from scratch,” Evans said in a recent interview. He noted that people will bring him, say, a sideboard and ask him to tighten it up, thinking that it’ll be just a small job. “If a piece is going to be reglued,” Evans said, “it has to come apart; there’s no other way to do it properly.”

Evans went on to say that one of the critical areas of restoration is traditional French polishing, and added that it’s hard for him to understand how a piece could be restored without it. “Where you repair (a piece of furniture), you disturb the finish on either side of it,” he said.

French polish is an 18th-century method of applying a shellac finish to furniture. It’s a slow, laborious process that takes a month and a half to two months to complete, but the resulting glow enhances the grain pattern in the wood and gives pleasure to the eye for years to come.

Evans learned the art through an eight-year apprenticeship with Dutch master cabinetmaker David Hendriks, in Toronto, where Evans was working at the time. Recalling his years with Hendriks, Evans said, “He gave me a very solid footing in cabinetmaking.” Evans added that Hendricks was a meticulous craftsman who had grown up under the apprentice system in Holland and who had worked there in a family business that involved a lot of furniture restoration.

Evans now has an apprentice of his own — Beth Connor. She met Evans when she attended a yard sale held by Evans and his wife. Connor, who said she had fantasized about getting into cabinetry, was so impressed by what she saw that day that she told Evans if he ever needed help, she’d work for nothing. Shortly thereafter, Evans got a big restoration job, the result of a fire on North Haven, and hired her. Connor has worked with Evans for two years now, and he is well-pleased.

“Beth has the requisite patience,” he said. “She has a fine arts degree and has a great sense of color,” he continued. “She can draw very well, which (is something) I have trouble with; she’s great at organization; she puts up with my scatteredness; and she’s good at the computer.”

With Connor handling most of the restoration under Evans’ guidance, he can devote more time to the designing and building of furniture.

While we spoke, a customer named Dorothy Graf arrived with a couple of chairs that needed restoration. Evans built a king-sized, four-poster bed for the Grafs, which they love. “We can’t wait to get to bed,” Graf said. She noted that Evans had also restored a family piece: a veneered tall case clock from Scotland. A satisfied customer, she added, “We’re going to have Bill build us a coffee table.”

Evans showed Graf a sample of curly cherry for the table top. Graf’s husband prefers a highly figured French walnut. Evans made plans to visit the Grafs’ living room to measure the space and further discuss the choice of wood.

Working with Evans is not unlike working with an architect. In many cases, he starts with a sketch or photograph of what the customer wants. He then goes to his treasury — the cellar — which holds a stock of woods that include 36-inch-wide mahogany boards, cherry, fiddle-back walnut, curly or tiger maple with the stripe going clear around the board, and some nicely figured walnut with a purplish hue. In addition, Evans has about 20 varieties of veneeers in flitches, or stacks of thinly sliced, exotic patterns. “When somebody comes in with an idea, I then pick through my materials to find something suitable,” he said. He brings samples upstairs and finishes them in natural or a stain to show the customer. “If you don’t have good materials, you can’t make a good piece.”

Evans has good materials. He has a whole flitch of burled English brown oak. His ribbon mahogany looks like a sheet of light and dark striped ribbon candy. His korina, an light-colored African wood with an pronounced grain, has a diagonal curl to it that adds a fine accent to darker woods. His blistered maple undulates in the light; his swirled and flame mahoganies do just that: they flow and swirl and spout flames. His lustrous curly, crotch, and bird’s eye maples seem to dance.

Wood is “alive.” It expands and contracts with the amount of moisture in the air. Looked at under a microscope, the vessels move. Capturing that light and life is what Evans is all about. His latest dining room table, a commissioned piece made with saber legs ending in brass casters and with a removable, tilt-top center section that can stand alone as a breakfast table is made of beautifully figured Brazilian mahogany. A narrow strip of light maple inlay divides the mahogony from a 2-inch-wide veneer strip of the rosewoodlike African bubinga.

An unfinished section of bubinga looks as if someone had taken a soft graphite pencil and drawn narrow, random, wavy lines from top to bottom. The effect when finished is a dramatic and eye-catching combination of light and dark that adds to the shape and beauty of a piece, much like now-unavailable rosewood.

Since Evans has an affinity for the formal veneered and inlaid furniture of the federal period, his discovery that bubinga can be used as a substitute for rosewood pleases him. “I like the classic furniture because it’s so good,” he said, but added that he likes to take ideas from the classics and incorporate them into new pieces. He uses veneers and inlays in new ways to give a more contemporary look to his furniture. He also makes elegant cases for his cousin Robert Eddy’s jewel-like shop models.

Looking about his light-filled, well-appointed cabinet shop, Evans said that natural light makes all the difference, for his spirits as well as for his work. The 54-year-old cabinetmaker said he plans to continue producing professionally for another 20 years, then added, “It’s doubtful whether I’ll ever let it go completely.”

The art of French Polishing

French polishing refers to the method of applying a shellac finish to a piece of furniture. Briefly, Evans takes a wad of cotton or wool, charges it with a mixture of shellac and alcohol, and wraps it tightly in a lint-free cloth so it forms a ball. Once charged, he puts a small amount of mineral oil on the ball or pad for lubrication. Next, he starts rubbing the surface in small, circular motions. He then enlarges the rubbing pattern. He follows this by rubbing the wood in long, straight strokes, moving with the grain.

He repeats this procedure about 10 times. Each time he completes the rubbing process, he permits the piece to dry for a few days to a week. The last few times, he alters the mixture to bring up the shine.

“It’s not as easy as it sounds,” Evans said. “It takes years to learn the proportions and timing, how much pressure to apply, and how long the piece takes to dry.”