Repairing and Refinishing a 19th-Century Sideboard – Part 2

In my last post, I showed how I removed the old finish from this 19th-century sideboard. Most any antique furniture I can afford to buy is going to need some repair, and that was certainly true of this piece. No doubt it was priced low partly due to the hole burned into the top. As you can see, the gap is large and deep, and it runs right out the front edge. I first considered filling most of it in with epoxy and doing some kind of decorative inlay to top it off. Then I came to my senses and settled on an plain wooden panel. I’ve done this kind of thing a couple times before, though never with something this big. I happened to have a 4″ wide white oak board available. I resawed it and edge-glued the two halves together. After planing it down, I ended up with a panel measuring about 12″ by 8″, and 3/8″ thick. I made sure both halves had the grain running the same direction. The first step was to clamp the panel to be inlaid exactly where I wanted it. Make sure the grain direction of…