Rocking chair arm repair advice

[Zachary Hoyt]

I was asked by someone from the other end of town (two blocks away) to repair a rocking chair arm. It was in her house when she bought it 40 years ago, but recently when a larger friend came to visit he broke both chair arms when getting out of it. I am thinking of laminating a whole new arm assembly from 3/32" strips of wood, maybe ash or maple or whatever I can find in a straight grained piece. I laminated a single bend like this for the stems of the canoes I built some years ago, using a hot pipe like I do for instrument sides, and I think a double bend should be doable. I figure I could then glue on ears for the arm ends where they're wider, drill holes, remove the back top piece and slide the new arm assembly into place.

If there is a better way to do this I would like to know. I don't have any experience with steaming thicker wood, which is how I imagine this was made originally. The owner says she'll paint whatever I make black to match the rest of the chair, so appearance is not critical. I think the original arms are past repairing, as they have been repaired with metal plates in a couple of spots a long time ago. I also wondered about a hybrid method with bent strips on the inside and outside and blocks in between the areas that will be drilled out anyway, but am not sure if that would be easier or harder. I'll be grateful for any advice.

[Jim Becker]

It looks like the ends of those arms were already built up from separate pieces or were at least previously repaired that way. Due to the construction of that form of chair, I kinda think you're going to have to meld on new material, starting somewhere in front of the back spindles since that chair would be a bear to get apart to replace the entire bent arm section. Regardless of how you end up doing this, make sure that the lady understands it's going to be a best effort as it's a very difficult repair to make for physical strength, even if it looks good.

[Kevin Jenness]

As Jim suggests, I would look at scarfing new ends on to avoid disassembling the back. If the arm bow and top rail would come off easily your projected method would be a good strong fix but it could be a can of worms and making a form and gluing up a new bow will be time-consuming. The right arm would be a straightforward scarf joint while the left side would probably need a separate dutchman on the outside of the last spindle.

[Terry Therneau]

Here is another idea. Remove the current part, all way round. Use a small handsaw or oscillating tool for instance to cut in from the front and back at each spoke, each piece could then be rotated out. Put them back together to make a pattern. Make a new part just a bit wider (1 saw kerf), drill the holes, and then bandsaw it in 2 along the arc, right through the centers of the holes. Glue the two halves together in place, on the chair. The two wooden halves "clamp" the spokes. Sand and paint.

I'm sure you can improve on this wrt the details. It gives you a lot of freedom when making the curved portion.

Terry T.

[Mel Fulks]

That is an odd chair. Never seen anything like it. But I’m thinking it might have been an early prison electric chair prototype that was
rejected because it was just too brutally ugly, then gleefully taken home by a guard as a birthday present for his wife , who then divorced him.

[Bradley Gray]

The spindles are likely inserted from the bottom of seat and wedged. Trying to take it apart will likely make kindling.

[Jamie Buxton]

Often the cost to repair old furniture greatly exceeds the value of the repaired piece.

[Zachary Hoyt]

Thank you all for the advice. The bandsaw box type method sounded good, but I thought I would try the other way first, and I was able to successfully remove the top piece from the spindles of the back intact. I made a cardboard template of the inside of the arm assembly and got the old one off in 4 or so pieces. It was cracked at several spindles. I'll see what I can do tomorrow about making the new arm piece. I'm not planning to charge for this job, it's just a challenge or a novelty for me. I would put the value of this chair in the $5-10 range based on auctions I used to attend, so any price to repair it would exceed the value, but she says it's very comfortable for her, and at 77 I figure people should be as comfortable as they can, when possible.

[Zachary Hoyt]

I completed the chair reassembly project this morning and dropped it off on the way to the post office, since they're very close together. It took about 6 hours or so, over the course of several days. I bent the two inner laminations on a hot pipe, glued them together, glued the blocks on, trimmed them, and bent the two outer laminations cold. I cut a wedge of scrap wood to put on the drill press table to drill the various angles for the holes, and then used a Foredom with a sanding drum to widen them slightly to fit. Once it's all together it's pretty rigid, with so many back dowels. I drilled blind holes for the arm dowels instead of through holes like it had originally. I also made the arm assembly a bit thicker, since it's the weakest point of the chair. I dropped it off on the porch since the owner wasn't home.

[Jamie Buxton]

Nice job!

Nice delivery truck too.

[Doug Garson]

Well done and ditto on the delivery "truck". :cool:

[Ron Selzer]

like the delivery vehicle

[Zachary Hoyt]

I like to carry things on the bicycle if I'm not going far, and this was only about 1/4 mile to the other end of the village. In some countries they carry a lot more stuff on their bicycles, but here it's easy to be seen as odd just by carrying a mere chair.

[Jim Becker]

Wow...excellent repair for what many of us thought would be pretty rough to do!

[Zachary Hoyt]

That's very kind of you. I wasn't sure it would work, and there were some moments where I really thought it wouldn't.

[Brian Tymchak]

Wow! Congrats on a great recovery! And it only took 6 hours?? Very efficient.

[Cameron Wood]

Well done!

[John Kananis]

Nicely done. There's zero doubt I would have walked away from that one. Kudos.