I was asked if I could repair a small rocking chair for our Church nursery. The two spindles that supported the arms were very loose and showed evidence of previous repairs. I thought if I couldn't fix the spindles, I could at least replace them with dowels.
When I disassembled the chair I found that there had been several previous repair attempts. One of the repairs added a 3/8" plywood piece over the original wood seat. Two different types of screws were used to hold it in place. At first inspection one spindle was being held on by a Spax type screw that was pulling into the bottom of the seat. I had decided to use threaded inserts screw into quarter inch holes into the bottom of the spindles. The drilling of the first spindle went quickly.
The second spindle was barely attached with a drywall screw in a stripped out hole. It also had a broken off screw sticking out of the bottom of the spindle about 1/8". I was able to remove the broken off screw with a pair of vise grips. As I started to drill the quarter inch hole for the insert, the bit removed just a few chips and chattered. It had hit a second screw. This second screw was a little over 1/8" below the end of the spindle so there was no way to drip it. I looked at buying some of those broken screw extractors with the saw teeth, but they were not going to be available for about a week.
I check the local auto parts stores to see if any had quarter inch steel brake tubing. On place said they did. I went there and the one material they had was a nickle copper alloy tubing. I bought a piece just to see if it would work. I cut off a short length, then cut some angle notches to act as teeth. I chucked my makeshift extractor into the drill press and it sort of worked, but the alloy was so soft it deformed quickly. The screw still wouldn't budge, so I stopped for the night.
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I go back into the shop this after noon and scrounged through the accumulated odds and ends in my shop looking for something that was 1/4" diameter. I found a short piece of all thread. It was steel so I decided to try to drill a tight fit hole in one end such that I might be able to jam it onto the exposed screw. I started out with a center punch, then a pilot bit. I worked up from a .138 bit to a .144, drilling anbout 5/8" deep. The .144 almost fit, so I went up to a.146 bit and drilled it about 1/4" deep.
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I mounted the arm and spindle assembly in my woodworking vise and them tapped my extractor down onto the exposed screw. On the second try, the extractor gripped the screw tight enough to turn it out. Here is the broken screw.
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Once the obstacle was out of the way, the rest of the repair went quickly. The chair will return later this week. This is the chair after repairs.
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Originally Posted by Jerry Bruette
