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