Help with Spindle Repair

[Chris Tsutsui]

My mom has some sort of knotty pine coffee table that's at least 20 years old and she still loves it.Her new dog chewed up a single round section of it.How do I fix it? The leg is glued to the aprons and I might damage the table if I try to remove the entire leg.I have a lathe and pine blanks that size already. I just don't know how to repair it so the table doesn't get weak.I'm also a beginning woodturner but I think I could replicate the entire leg if needed. I just don't think I could stain it to match but I could do my best.Thanks

[Steve Schlumpf]

Wow... nice doggy!

If it were me, I would find a way to remove the damaged leg. I would then turn the damaged portion of the spindle away - with the idea being to turn a replacement donut. Would be a lot easier to glue a new donut in place than turning an entire new leg. As far as matching color... just something you would have to play with.

[Paul Williams]

Steve has given you the right answer, but if you can't get the leg off without damage you might try carving or sanding the damaged area to a clean cylinder. Then turn a replacement for the damaged area with the appropriate sized hole through it, spit it in half and glue around the leg. You are on your own for the finish. Practice on a piece of scrap.

[James Combs]

I do a lot of furniture repair and I think if I could not get the leg off and do something like Steve suggests I would cut it off and dowel it.

Explanation:
To do as I am suggesting I would turn the table upside down and clamp it to my drill press table so that the bad leg is vertical under the drill chuck. I would drill a hole through the center of the leg with the largest drill bit that would leave enough wood to hold the beads together at the thinnest parts of the leg (the bead valleys). I would drill to a depth of at least one inch past the damaged area. I would then saw the leg in-two at the first bead valley above the damage with the thinnest kerf saw blade I had, something like a key hole saw, keeping the cut as straight as possible. I would then take the sawed off piece and glue in a fitted dowel into the drilled hole with and inch or so sticking out both ends of the piece. Then I would chuck the piece into a chuck or collet and then turn it to repair the doughnut similar to what Steve suggested. I would not touch the sawed end of the piece. After the doughnut has been repaired I would then reassembled and glue and glue the sawed areas back together preferable in the original rotation to the original area using the dowel as a tenon. I would probably use epoxy as my glue to provide some gap fill in the probably rough saw kerf. As far as color match, as Steve said "... just something you would have to play with".

This maybe a little long winded but it would work. I have done something similar to replace the tenon on chair spindles where the tenon has been broken off.

Edit: Thom's point below about the leg being a little short could be corrected by shortening the other 3 slightly but I would probably leave the other end of my dowel noted above a little long to compensate for the saw kerf. If you used a key hole saw the kerf won't be more then a 1/16" or so and the gap fill properties of epoxy could also be used to compensate for most of the saw kerf.

[John Keeton]

Chris, without being there, it is guesswork. But, I think I would be inclined to saw off the leg at the point where the large bead (donut) begins. Mark it all around on a flat floor so you get a good, concentric mark. You will need to have a flat, or perhaps just a little concave surface on the sawn end. Then, I would drill a hole in the center of the remaining leg portion at least half the diameter of the leg at that point, if not a bit larger. It doesn't need to be real deep - 1" maybe. Then turn a matching bottom portion of the leg, leaving a tenon the size of the hole you drill in the leg. Use some of the pine you have to turn a cylinder to use for matching up the finish. Most of that knotty pine furniture was finished with a stain/varnish. In other words, the color was in the varnish, not in the wood.

[Thom Sturgill]

both JD and John gave good answers. The advantage to turning the donut and keeping the original part of the leg is matching the length and cut end. If you can cut cleanly I would tend toward replacing the bottom as JK said. If you leave the leg a little long you can trim that one leg after its assembled, otherwise if you re-use the original and don't allow for the saw kerf you end up with a short leg and have to trim all three of the other legs to match!

[Jon McElwain]

I once installed a donut on a spindle where I could not slide it on. I turned the donut to the correct inside diameter and rough turned the outside. Then I broke the donut into two halves along the grain. I turned a flat spot on the spindle to match the inside diameter of the donut. Next I put the donut together around the spindle and glued it in place. The advantage of breaking the donut rather than cutting it was that it broke along the grain lines, and when it was glued back together, the glue line matched the grain exactly. Once the piece is dried, mount the spindle and turn the donut to the correct bead. This method saves the integrity of the leg.

[Chris Tsutsui]

Thanks for all the replies.

I'm going to have to bring the coffee table home to work on it and i'll try to get that leg off.

If not, i like the drill press and dowel idea.

There a guy at my woodcraft that teaches classes on finishing. If I bring him the leg, he might be able to suggest some things to try.

I'll post how it turns out.