help with chair repair

[Ned Otter]

Due to lovely rocking in non-rocking chairs, a couple of the chairs have started to give way, so to speak. I have never tackled a chair in need, and could use some advice.

Basically the back and rear leg assembly (one piece) has a mortice/tenon connection to the rear of the seat. There are some metal clips or something like that, which is just about all that is holding the assembly to the chair. A while ago (with novice ww skills), I attempted to re-glue and clamp, but it has not held.

Any advice is much appreciated.

I will try to upload some photos. The photo of the bottom of the chair shows supports that with a screw from the bottom support up to the underside of the seat. Seems like the screw is used to hold the cane seat to the chair structure.

Best,

Ned Otter

[Mike Mathieu]

Hi Ned
I do quite a bit of furniture repair and usually end up taking the chair apart to get to where the old glue has failed. Sometimes the tenons are cracked or broken in which case I have to use dowels to repair them. Most of the time I can just clean the old glue joint to get it to good wood and use a 2 part epoxy to reglue the joint. I have more problems with newer chairs failing and find that many times they were not sufficiently glued at the factory and where screws were used instead of real workmanship.

[Ned Otter]

Hi Mike --

Thanks for your help.

I used yellow glue last time, but perhaps I could have done a better job cleaning the joint area.

Why do you use epoxy?

Thanks,

Ned

[Mike Henderson]

I do the same as Mike. I use epoxy because it's strong and gap filling. If the tenon is still good, I might add some veneer to it if I had to trim it too much to get all the glue off.

To really fix a chair, you do need to disassemble it - at least the failing joints. Done well, the chair will last a very long time.

Mike

[Also, corner blocks are your friend. Make sure you replace the originals (or re-make them) as part of the repair.]

[Steve Vaughan]

Ned, I've repaired quite a few chairs as the others have, and I'd agree with them. I've got a one of those cheapo, made somewhere in the world out of some sort of wood that is too soft for a chair to begin with, rocking chairs. It had loosened up terribly all over. If you got a wiggly chair in what looks like a joint or two, you've probably got a few others too. I've busted my chair loose into every piece...very little glue and a thin finishing nail was all that was holding.

I think you really need to disassemble the chairs to at least get to the loose joints and clean 'em up a bit. To clean up I've used a dremel and old chisels to get most of the glue out and then roughed up the mortises and tenons just a little.

I've use epoxy as well as gorilla glue, clamp it up good 2 sides at a time, then all together, both the epoxy and gorilla glue have done well.

Hope that helps!

[Ned Otter]

Gents - thanks very much for the sage advice. I really appreciate it --

Ned

[Lee Schierer]

Yellow glue and others don't like to stick to old glue and most don't work well in thicknesses more than a few thousandths of an inch thick. You'll want to clean off the old glue and get down to bare wood on both halves of the joint. This usually means the joint is now a sloppy fit.

What I do is make wood shims and glue them onto the pieces first and then trim the wood shims to make the joint tight again. For round chair spindles you can make thick shavings with a good wood plane, I usually use soft maple, and wrap them with glue around the spindle in layers until the size is right or slightly oversize. Once I get a tight wood on wood joint I apply glue.

[lowell holmes]

I use hot hide glue if that's what the chair was glued with. Otherwise, you have to remove all of the old glue before applying new glue. The new hot glue will reactrivate the old glue and give you a tight joint.
Hide glue can be softened with hot water.
Yellow glue can be softened with hot water and white vinegar mixture.
IIRC, a book called Antique Doctor is a good reference for this.

[harry strasil]

What Lee said + I use rubber bands to hold the shaving tight in place till the glue dries.

If its put together with hide glue, I use strips of cloth that have been put in very hot water and mostly rung out twisted around an old pair of needle nose pliers in the socket to revitalize the hide glue remnants that remain in the spindle hole.

[Lee Schierer]

What Lee said + I use rubber bands to hold the shaving tight in place till the glue dries.

Thanks, Harry I forgot that is what I do to hold the shavings in place as well. They some times come out a bit wrinkled, but if they are a bit oversize sanding brings them back to a good fit.