I did a bit more this morning. The heat is finally coming to an end. It's a nice overcast 70* or so at the moment.
I started repairing the dress guard's veneer. The top edge had a strip of missing and loose veneer about 3" wide across the top.
Singer didn't spend money on fancy veneer where they didn't need to. The outer veneer is plain sawn instead of the fancier and more expensive quartersawn oak they used where it shows.
The first picture shows some badly weathered and dirty oak plywood that I peeled some veneer from to use for this repair. Maybe not ideal but it may actually match better than new clean veneer would.
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The repair patch. The veneer was already lifting off so I helped it along with a putty knife and made the cuts with a straightedge and singe edge razor blade.
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There are some little steel brads helping to hold things together. I carefully removed them with a set of end cutters. I'll reuse them when the repair is complete.
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I didn't take any pictures while I was working (sorry) but I trimmed off the damaged outer veneer saving it for other repairs. The loose veneer was a couple layers deep. I cleaned out all the dust that I could that had found it's way in over the years and did a rough patch job on the inner layer working glue between the layers that had separated and adding pieces of veneer where the original was missing. The outer layer needs a smooth base to glue it to or it won't look right. Here it is all clamped up with wax paper to keep the glue from sticking where it shouldn't. I used a board to apply even pressure all the way across. It's impossible to have too many clamps.
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I'll continue after the glue dries by smoothing up the base layer and adding the outer veneer.
I'm hoping seeing these repairs will help people fix damaged parts when they can instead of having to find replacements though there are times when that's appropriate too.
Rodney