More than 35 years ago, Mortimer LaPointe (aka Mort) of Mortimer LaPointe Woodworking in Bowdoinham completed an apprenticeship at Maine Maritime Museum in Bath, which eventually led him to his business and passion today, restoring and building antique furniture.

“I learned how to be a traditional boat builder at the apprentice shop, and I took that skill with me when I moved to Mystic, Conn., and started working at the Mystic Seaport Museum building boats,” said Mort.

He worked at Mystic Seaport for more than two years before going out on his own, building and repairing boats for people in that area. “But in the slow season I started working on boat people’s furniture and antiques. Some of them had these nice homes with all this antique furniture and a lot of it needed to be repaired. Eventually, I was doing 50 percent boats and 50 percent furniture,” he said.

So when he moved back to Maine 16 years ago, he decided to concentrate on antiques.

“I really found my niche with restoring antiques and doing custom woodwork. Antique restoration now is my bread and butter. But I build furniture, too, from scratch or from reclaimed lumber,” Mort said. “People bring in pictures and want a certain piece built. Reclaimed lumber has become really popular now.”

He often buys lumber from old barns or houses that have been torn down, so it has a weathered look. “People don’t want to see new and shiny when they open a drawer that is on a piece from the 1800s. So I use the old stuff and it looks better that way,” he said.

He often refers to old textbooks in order to find an illustration that is time-appropriate for the various pieces he may be working on. “I want my repairs to be invisible, so I take a look in the book to see what the piece should look like,” Mort said. “The repair should match exactly in its character and color.”

Often, he finds he is the person who has to clean up others’ poorly done repairs. “You would be amazed what people do to their furniture,” he said. “I find tape or glue, I mean, just all kinds of stuff and that needs to be fixed. Some of these pieces are very old and fragile, or others can be heirlooms that have a lot of history, and they just want the piece to look the way it did back when it was new.” A lot of times heirlooms or family treasures are stored in barns, cellars or garages and need a bit of a face lift.

Some repairs may call for the use of mahogany or walnut, so in order to keep the cost down he gets thin sheets of the more expensive wood and fastens it to the outer edge of a cheaper piece of lumber, like pine.

“I try to match a piece exactly, without making the cost prohibitive, so you learn to use little tricks,” he said. “I mix all my own colors, too. This is not like a Minwax commercial. It is not that easy to get the exact same stain color.

“I start with a dye and some of them (dyes) I mix with water, others with alcohol,” he continued. “I also make my own glue. Ground Hide Glue, which is really old-fashioned and, in fact, uses ground up animal hide, and I mix it here on this little heater.”

A fastidious and conscientious woodworker, he refuses to give up his old tools.

“When I was an apprentice, I learned by using all the old hand tools, so I use them still today,” Mort said. “But when I worked for a stint in a cabinet shop, there all we used was power tools. So now I have both.”

He smiled as he recalled co-workers in the past, who had made fun of his fascination and use of an old hand planer. “They used to call it my eraser. They said, ‘Look out, Mort must have made another mistake because he has brought out his eraser,’” he said.

He sharpens all his own tools; except for the table saw blades, which he sends out to get sharpened.

His favorite thing to work on is a dining room table, because it has a big surface that is easy and fun to deal with. But he really loves everything he does and creates.

“I like the variety. I never know what’s coming next when the phone rings,” he said.

¦ MORTIMER LAPOINTE has a close working relationship with merchants and artists in the Mid-coast region.

Timeless Cottage sells some of his tables that he custom makes and that can be ordered from Patricia Porell, owner of the store located at 66 Maine St. in Brunswick.

LaPointe also makes shelves and tables for an art gallery on Basin Point Road in Harpswell, which uses these items as stands or display surfaces for art pieces.