Finished the chair..... and it broke. Help!
Jay G
>Any idea how to fix this without restripping/reupholstering the whole thing? I finally finished repairing, refinishing, and installing leather into a white oak rocker and it broke across the main vertical portion of the back where the arms connect. I'll try to attach a picture, but this is my first post.
In case the photo doesn't work, I'll try to describe it further. The arm of the chair has a dowel that penetrates through the back of the chair across the cross section of the vertical back (main beam). The break (marked on picture as a red line) appears to start on the back of the upright cross section, but doesn't appear to have completely broken through on the front of the cross upright section where the arm runs into the vertical upright.
The chair was made in about 1912 and is made of white oak. I used transtint (water) and shellac to finish it. I contemplated fixing the break by routing a slot approximately 1.5 inches above to 1.5 inches below the break line and then creating a white oak plug (rounded with a bull nose bit), gluing, clamping, and refinishing. I'm a bit concerned that this method will not be strong enough for a main beam (vertical upright). My other hesitation is that with the dowel and fill material, I may get quite a bit of chip out when I route it.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.