What Do You Think???

[John Terefenko]

I have a chair that needs repairs. It is a spindle designed chair with flat slats in the middle. The end spindles broke and a couple of slats also. I am thinking I can drill the spindles out in the center and insert a dowel to reinforce them and just glue the flat slats. With that in mind I am torn between glues. I am leaning toward a polurethane glue such as Gorilla Glue or just yellow carpenters glue. The wood is red oak. Maybe you have an even better idea or suggestion of glue. Would like to hear it.

[Michael Gibbons]

Do you have pics? That would help out.

[Jim Becker]

Unless you can get the joints completely cleaned of existing glue, (required for PVA and best for poly glue), you're probably going to be best served by using epoxy once you do get it as clean as possible. PVA requires a bare wood to bare wood situation to bond effectively. I don't find poly glues to be all that wonderful and they are absolutely not gap filling...hence the epoxy which is.

[John Terefenko]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v233/JTTHECLOCKMAN/brokenchair.jpg


Here is a picture of the damage. After looking at it I am not sure what kind of wood it is. I am guessing maple but to snap like that it is hard to believe. I am trying to avoid using chair brackets that are screwed to the top. I would have to do this to all 6 chairs for looks. Any suggestions are appreciated.

[Sam Yerardi]

I would only use the epoxy to restore the spindle, not to make the joint to the seat. The drawback to epoxy will be if you ever need to take it apart again later. You will have a bigger repair job. The joint will not come apart and you will probably create more damage. Epoxy, polyurethane are historically the bane of furniture restorers because there is no easy way to reverse them. For the wood to have snapped as it has I'm inclined to think it is a softwood rather than maple. It's possible that it's maple but unless the maple was rotten it IMHO would take an extreme amount of force to cleanly snap the spindle as shown in the picture.

Edit:
Once you have restored the spindle with epoxy, I would use either yellow glue or liquid hide glue to make the join to the seat. Both can easily be reversed. Also, in looking at the coarsness of the end grain it looks a lot like pine or fir. You can still use the dowel approach. You will need to drill out and/or remove the broken part of the shaft that is in the seat. Add the necessary length to the spindle to accomodate re-installation.