Spindle Captains chair

[Tom Spallone]

I'm repairing a very nice Oak, Spindle Captains dining chair for a client. The story has it that this guy's "very heavily set" wife kept using the chair to step on to reach things out of her reach.

The natural join between one of the 2.5" "seat slats" seperated cleanly. I've taken apart the chair as much as I can without doing more damage to it and without severely eating into the profit margin.

As I've said, the crack is clean. I can spread the break apart enough to get glue in and I can get a good clamp on it. I can glue up the damaged under leg which is nicely carved and I believe I can get the whole chair together nicely.

My question is, on the underside of the chair should I put in some reinforcing "bits". I was thinking the shoddy, recessing litte medal brackets and screwing them in to add support to the break spreading again. Or, I though of inlaying bowtie inlays. Again, doing the latter adds severely to my bottom line and the former looks kind of crappy but, I wonder if I need anything at all.

Any suggestions? Thanks

[Dan Oliphant]

Tom, in my opinion, repairing the damage should be the end of your task. But with that said, the client will not be very pleased with your work if his wife continues to use a chair in a way it was not intended and she breaks it again, possibly hurting herself. With that said, knowing that she will missue the repaired chair or any other chair, do what I think you already know needs to be done.

[Neil Bosdet]

Fix the chair as you've stated without the extras. Suggest your client purchase a fold-away step stool for his wife's needs. You could offer the extra reinforcement (the nice key feature) at an extra cost for extra durability. I wouldn't do it otherwise. Based on the way you've put it, you're being paid to fix a chair, not a stool.

[Tom Spallone]

Ok, it's glued up (without the extras) and it's looking good. Had my kid sit in it while I glued, clamped, screwed it all together. It holds my 225lb nicely without any creeks.

But, by the way, if I wanted to, (just wondering mind you) if I wanted to take the whole chair apart to REALLY rebuild the thing, how does one remove strongly secured spindles from its proper home?