Last year I found a
very cool looking dresser someone had thrown away. It has a marble
top, veneer everywhere, a beautiful mosaic across the front of the
drawers, brass accents and the only flat surface is the back. It had
an asset tag from the Sutton Place Hotel which was a fancy hotel in
Toronto frequented by movie stars and celebrities when it was
operating.

You can go here for
images

It had some very
obvious problems with it. The veneer was coming off in places and
missing in others and nearly every joint was coming loose. I thought
it was awesome beyond measure and vowed to fix it up some day. Well,
that day has come.

Since every joint
was coming loose it was fairly easy to disassemble with a few
challenging bits. I should note that the drawers are not coming apart
at all except the veneer here and there. It basically consists of 4
horizontal panel assemblies, the two sides and a 3-ply plywood back
that was screwed on. The two sides house a very nice large veneer and
only have 3 loose joints between the two. The loose joints here are
currently being held together by the veneer and I think I can get
away with not doing too much with them.

This brings me to my
first pressing question and this only concerns the horizontal
sections. There appears to be two types of glue used in this. I'm not
sure if it was repaired previously or something strange happened
during construction. The first type of glue is still holding although
brittle. It's dark brown and gets soft when wet so I assume is hide
glue. The other type of glue is coming completely undone and is
off-white and is nothing more than a powder now, which is why the
horizontal pieces were so easy to disassemble. The only parts that
are still holding together are one half of the very long biscuit
joints (is there another name for these?) One side is held fairly
firm by the 'hide glue' the other with the powder white glue.
Finally, the question, should I make an effort to re-glue the hide
glue portions or can I get away with leaving them as is? As you can
imagine, one is much more work than the other.

I want to do this
job right the best I can. I'm not sure of its value but I like it and
want to preserve the value that it has. I'm good with my hands and
have access to lots of tools so I'm confident I can do whatever is
needed without much outside help. One antique dealer offered me $500
for it but couldn't/wouldn't tell me its value when restored. I have
been asking around about it but so far nobody has given me any
information on it, so if anyone here has something to say about it I
would love to hear it.

Next question is
whether super glue in parts would hinder its value or be
inappropriate. I've built model aircraft and can see parts where
wicking in some super glue in would solve problems easily.

The current game
plan is to re-glue all the horizontal sections with hide glue and
reattach the sides than slowly work away at repairing the veneer and
replacing it with what I can. I'm not sure what to do with the
finish.