Glue Chairs

[Dave Fritz]

We’re gluing old chairs that have come a little loose. Any tips on how to get Titebond in a small crack? Will thinning make it useless? Thank you.

[Stan Calow]

This is what I use: https://www.leevalley.com/en-us/shop/tools/supplies/adhesives/glue/30261-chair-doctor-glue?item=05K9904&utm_source=free_google_shopping&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=shopping_feed&srsltid=AfmBOooBaKCYqXUywe0wgqO1C4c1jlJz64ZpTlLPUg p82wio0TaedqTvPp0

Note the needle tips to get it in there. For all I know, it might be thinned PVA glue, but it's the delivery system that makes it work.

[roger wiegand]

The only fix I've ever done that works long term is to pull them apart, clean up the mortises and tenons and re-glue, adding back material with a thin piece of veneer as needed, or in more extreme cases drill the hole out large, insert a hardwood plug and re-drill the correct size hole for the tenon. Using hide glue for the reassembly makes the job much easier for the next guy in 50 years. For a shorter term fix on chairs I don't care that much about I've used a gap-filling epoxy to put them back together. The next guy won't be happy about that, so I only do it on chairs I think are unlikely to get serious repair work in the future.

[Maurice Mcmurry]

I was happy to see "Tight Chairs" back on the shelf at our Ace Hardware. I remember it working well. It is time to try it again.

519445

[Bill Howatt]

My approach is almost the same to Roger's. I have used Chair Doctor and it works but doesn't seem to be a good method for long term repairs, possibly because you are doing a repair blindly. I think it is just thinned PVA and my issue, rightly or wrongly, is that PVA wants to adhere to wood not an old dry PVA surface which is why I sanded and shimmed. I now use epoxy on our chairs, I don't see why I'd want to take them apart later anyway - no Louis XIV stuff here.

[Mike Null]

I have to do my 30 year old kitchen chairs and I have Chair Doctor but I saw a YouTube show where the guy, 1. clamped the joints, 2. saturated them with super glue and 3. used accelerator. Then he proceeded to test the joints. I was quite impressed with his results and am considering that approach.

[Lee Schierer]

I disassemble as much as possible, clean out the joints and tenons. For reassembly I make some long shavings out of oak. I apply glue to the tenon and then tightly wrap the tenon with the oak shaving insuring that all wraps are glued to the preceding one. When the tenon appears a bit larger than the socket it goes into, I cut the shaving and then wrap the glued shaving with multiple stretched and twisted rubber bands to apply clamping pressure. Once the glue sets up hard, remove the rubber bands and sand the applied shaving to fit snugly (toward the tight side). Then I glue the chair back together insuring the feet all make contact with the floor. I use webbed straps to apply pressure to the joints.

I usually get at least ten years of service from chairs repaired this way, mostly more.

[Charles Edward]

The only glue that will strike through old glue is hide. If PVA was originally used, injecting it into a partially closed joint isn't going to do much in the long run. It might seem a little tighter, but only because it swelled the joint. Little gluing has likely taken place. PVA over hide -- total waste of time. Have to disassemble, clean, maybe make a fox-wedge, and reglue. You can pack the joint out with shavings as Lee has pointed out in his post.

[Jimmy Harris]

Thinning PVA glue with water works really well. I do it all of the time for various reasons. Sometimes, to get it through the needle of a syringe. Part of the trick with thinned PVA is it absorbs quicker and there's less glue. So you usually need to apply some, let it absorb, and then apply some more before the old glue has a chance to dry.

That being said, wet PVA won't stick to old dry glue. So if you're trying to strengthen an old glue joint that's come lose, then you need to disassemble the glue joint, clean off all of the old glue, and reglue it like a new joint. If you're just going to try to fill in new glue on top of the old glue, I'd use a 2-part epoxy or cyanoacrylate glue instead. Neither would be as good a disassembling the joint and resetting it, but both would be much better than mixing old and new PVA glue.

I've found that if an old joint is loose, it can usually be worked free with a bit of wiggling. You may need to apply heat from a heat gun, or acetone (not at the same time as acetone is flammable) to get the old glue to let go. Be careful with those, as they'll both ruin the old finish.

[Richard Coers]

The best tip I ever got about gluing loose tenons in chairs was from a professional furniture repairman. He took an 1/8" drill bit and drilled from the bottom of the rung and aimed for the bottom of the mortise. He used epoxy in a tapered end plastic syringe and wedged it tight in the hole. Then slowly pushed in the epoxy until he saw some appear around the mortise. The epoxy didn't mind the old adhesive in the hole and that was critical. Putting white glue on top of white glue just won't hold.

[Charles Edward]

The best tip I ever got about gluing loose tenons in chairs was from a professional furniture repairman. He took an 1/8" drill bit and drilled from the bottom of the rung and aimed for the bottom of the mortise. He used epoxy in a tapered end plastic syringe and wedged it tight in the hole. Then slowly pushed in the epoxy until he saw some appear around the mortise. The epoxy didn't mind the old adhesive in the hole and that was critical. Putting white glue on top of white glue just won't hold.

Using epoxy is kind of like doing a liver transplant and forgetting to put in the new liver. It's fatal, almost guaranteed to result in a broken part. You want the joint to fail, not an entire component. A glue joint that failed, with no split or broken parts, is doing exactly what the maker intended. And if they used hide glue they've done successive generations a huge favor.

[Jimmy Harris]

Using epoxy is kind of like doing a liver transplant and forgetting to put in the new liver. It's fatal, almost guaranteed to result in a broken part. You want the joint to fail, not an entire component. A glue joint that failed, with no split or broken parts, is doing exactly what the maker intended. And if they used hide glue they've done successive generations a huge favor.
Quite true. But it all depends on the situation. I'm not a rich man, so a lot of the furniture I've owned wasn't worth holding onto forever. But since I'm not a rich man, it also wasn't worth throwing away and buying a new one, when you could fix it and get another ten years out of it. Sometimes you're not trying to save a chair, but just putting off having to buy a new chair for a little bit longer.

[David Storer]

How about PU glue? Might that work? It will, reputedly, glue together almost anything ... although it might be difficult to work with and I have no idea about its longevity.

Genuine question. I have an unopened bottle of Gorilla glue on the shelf but no experience of actually using it.

[Lee Schierer]

Genuine question. I have an unopened bottle of Gorilla glue on the shelf but no experience of actually using it.

Well, It is a pretty strong water proof glue. Some people (Norm Abrams included) advocate wetting the joint before applying the glue to activate the glue. I've found that wetting the joint causes excess foaming. There is sufficient moisture even in kiln dried lumber and the atmosphere to activate the glue. You get stronger joints with far less foaming if you just apply the glue, spread it where needed, assemble and clamp the joint. In about 30 minutes to an hour you can remove most of the squeeze out that does foam with a sharp putty knife.

Do not make sloppy joints expecting the foam to fill the gaps. It will fill, but the foam ads no strength.

[Charles Edward]

How about PU glue? Might that work? It will, reputedly, glue together almost anything ... although it might be difficult to work with and I have no idea about its longevity.

Genuine question. I have an unopened bottle of Gorilla glue on the shelf but no experience of actually using it.

You're essentially asking about different kinds of permanent glues. If you're going to reglue with a more or less permanent adhesive then use a high quality boat builder's epoxy and be done with it. I don't advise it, but you don't seem to be swayed by other courses of action.

[Maurice Mcmurry]

At 85 my Father In Law went through a phase of gorilla gluing chairs and other genuine colonial antiques. The chairs are stuck together for sure. It is going to take some time to get them cleaned up. They look very odd in the meantime. The clear gorilla glue is non foaming. I would consider giving clear non foaming PU a try. If Tite Chairs is the same as the product I tried years ago, it is alleged to swell the wood as well as be an adhesive.

The description of Chair Lock is similar to the product I remember finding at Ace in the past. I have confused myself a little regarding Chair Lock Vs Tite Chairs. I guess I will have to try both. As a last resort I have used thickened epoxy on badly broken and worn out chairs.

519573 519574
https://www.swingpaints.com/product/1201/Circa-1850-Chair-Loc-Wood-Sweller

Based on the warnings Tite Chairs must be a version of Super Glue.

[stephen thomas]

FWIW - if you need them for any kind of glue insertion in whatever assembly: those hypo syringes in various sizes, and various size/diameter needles to go on them, are available at most local feed mill/ Ag centers. (Southern States, e.g.)
Needles can be blunted on a whetstone or grinder.

[Jimmy Harris]

FWIW - if you need them for any kind of glue insertion in whatever assembly: those hypo syringes in various sizes, and various size/diameter needles to go on them, are available at most local feed mill/ Ag centers. (Southern States, e.g.)
Needles can be blunted on a whetstone or grinder.
I get them off Amazon. You can get a bunch, dirt cheap, and they're already blunted. Plus they usually come with various diameter tips, so you can use them for oiling things, gluing things, cleaning out things, etc. and change the needle diameter to match the viscosity of whatever you're using. And if you're using them for PVA glue, you can clean and reuse them by just cycling some soapy and then clean water through them.

[Warren Mickley]

We disassemble joints that need to be reglued. We do not inject glue.

Hot hide glue is best for gluing. It grabs when put together so there is no need for clamps or straps and assembly is straightforward. Liquid hide glue gets soft and gooey under high humidity.

Many years ago a retired carpenter told me he used epoxy for gluing chairs. He said "They will never come apart." I remember thinking that sometime in the future a young restorer might give an estimate for repairing a chair, only to find that it takes much, much longer than he had expected because of the epoxy. Repairs with such materials are not ethical.

[David Storer]

I understand your drift on the ethics of using types of glue for repairs that mean that joints can not be easily disassembled. For me, however, ethics only really come into it if you are talking about vintage hand-made items that have some sort of intrinsic historical value.

If it's just a matter of fixing an old piece of shop-bought or home-made furniture that is falling apart from general use and abuse, I really don't think ethics comes into it. It's simply a matter of what will work well for maybe 10 or 15 more years and can be done relatively easily, quickly and inexpensively.

[Charles Edward]

I understand your drift on the ethics of using types of glue for repairs that mean that joints can not be easily disassembled. For me, however, ethics only really come into it if you are talking about vintage hand-made items that have some sort of intrinsic historical value.

If it's just a matter of fixing an old piece of shop-bought or home-made furniture that is falling apart from general use and abuse, I really don't think ethics comes into it. It's simply a matter of what will work well for maybe 10 or 15 more years and can be done relatively easily, quickly and inexpensively.

In that case: West System epoxy. Don't bother with anything else.

I have no idea what 'expensive' means to a forum participant. I have seen woodworkers so unaware of self that they'll talk about economizing on shop rags while standing in the midst of literally tens of thousands of dollars in power equipment and a hoard of hand tools. Then there are ones, similarly equipped, who happily use liquid hide glue well past its expiration date because they can't bear to throw out half a $6 bottle of glue.

[Richard Coers]

Using epoxy is kind of like doing a liver transplant and forgetting to put in the new liver. It's fatal, almost guaranteed to result in a broken part. You want the joint to fail, not an entire component. A glue joint that failed, with no split or broken parts, is doing exactly what the maker intended. And if they used hide glue they've done successive generations a huge favor.
How many times will the customer have you repair a broken joint before they take the work somewhere else? And how does it work when you tell your customers that you used a weaker glue so the joint would fail again? If the maker knew about wood grain direction in their chairs, the would be no purpose of using a weak joint as the failure point. When chairs fail in a part, the most often cause is short grain and NOT a strong adhesive.

[Charles Edward]

How many times will the customer have you repair a broken joint before they take the work somewhere else? And how does it work when you tell your customers that you used a weaker glue so the joint would fail again? If the maker knew about wood grain direction in their chairs, the would be no purpose of using a weak joint as the failure point. When chairs fail in a part, the most often cause is short grain and NOT a strong adhesive.

Thrown (turned) chairs should fail at the joint by the glue giving way from racking, shrinking and swelling over the years - a reglue fix.

When a joined chair fails at the joint, it often takes the upright with it, especially if the joint is pinned.

[Mike Henderson]

I've repaired a lot of commercial chairs (not antiques). Almost always, it's the joint at the back of the seat where the seat meets the upright of the back. And the reason for failure is not glue - it's wood failure. The joint is almost always two dowels. When you pull the joint apart, what you see is wood still stuck to the dowels. The glue on the dowels held just fine, but the wood in the back rail fractured because of the stress on the joint. There just wasn't enough glue surface area with two dowels.

The goal in repairing those chairs is not to make them last forever - it's to make them last until the owner decides to remodel and throw the old stuff away.

Because of the failure mode, the holes for the dowels will be too large - you can't just stick the joint back together. The easy way is to drill out the holes on both pieces of wood and put in a couple of larger dowels glued with epoxy.

A better approach is to put in a loose tenon, maybe using a Domino machine to make the mortises on both pieces. A proper sized tenon will have more long-grain-to-long-grain surface area and will be stronger.

But no matter which repair technique I used, I have not had one come back yet and that's a lot of years.

Mike

[Rafael Herrera]

From my point of view, what seems to be the problem is joint styles, like the two dowel method mentioned above, they are inherently weak. The weakness is mitigated by the reliance on strong glues. When the joint fails it damages the wood instead of the glue joint.

In industrial settings it might be ok to use these joints to save time, money or rely on less skilled labor. To repeat the same flawed process if one builds the furniture oneself is not ethical, if I understand Warren correctly. Keep in mind that ethics is just a set of agreed on rules, they're sometimes arbitrary.

A piece of furniture that fails at the glue line is easily repaired, one where the leg breaks and the glue line is intact goes to the garbage dump.

More and more this idea that a glue line that is stronger than the wood surrounding it is just marketing and actually encourages bad designs.

I also don't think that one uses hide glue if one intends the furniture to last centuries, neither did the woodworkers from the past, I suppose. They just knew the limitations of what they were using and build well. That their work lasts centuries is just incidental.