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Chair joint rehab question

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Chair joint rehab question

#1

Chair joint rehab question

woodburnbob


>My wife brought home an oak chair (sort of an antique side chair or desk chair of the same general design as the photo below). I don't think she noticed all the joints were cracked and loose. It's unuseable.

I disassembed the chair and was surprised the rail to leg joints were each comprised of three 3/8" dowels. In fact, all joints are dowelled. Some dowels are broken. I noticed an earlier repair had failed. It was poorly executed but drilling off-center 1/4" holes for new dowels secured with yellow glue intermixed with old crusty hide glue.

I've clean up all the joints, re-drilled dowel positions and so forth. I've stopped short of glue up because I started ruminating about whether to glue and clamp a few joints at a time versus gluing and clamping the whole chair at once.

At one point I thought of ditching the dowels and using biscuits and my biscuit cutter. But I don't think that's much of an improvement.

Now I'm thinking I should put a mortise on either side of each joint and use a separate "tenon". I'd think it would be the most mechanically rigid fix for the rail to leg joints.

Some years ago I tried rehabing some old dining chairs of the same vintage and dowel construction. After the yellow glue cured for a week or two I gently tested the joints and most of them cracked and fell apart. I just don't want to repeat history.

Any advice?


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Re: Chair joint rehab question

#2

I'd go with the loose tenons...

John in New Mexico


>About as good a fix as you could do. I wonder if there's any advantage to squaring the corners? I tend to like them that way, but don't have anything to back it up.

John

Re: Chair joint rehab question

#3

I concure...

Scott Burr in Ben Lomond, CA


>I think going with floating tenions would be the way to go. I think keep them rounded, a bit more contact/glue areas.

You could always glue some corner brackets and screw it to the legs from the back side. Ahhh thats cheating...

Re: Chair joint rehab question

#4

Re-engineering old furniture

jim reed @ tallahassee


>is often necessary. Sometimes the original design was just not strong enough. I would repair the dowel joints (they can be amazingly strong) and then add some glue blocks (not cross-grain!). Pretty chair. Good luck.

Re: Chair joint rehab question

#5

Re: Chair joint rehab question

Ed Mulligan, Cape Cod


>For these situations I run a 1/64" oversize drill bit into the old hole to clean out the crud, use new dowels, and reglue with slow-set epoxy.

The epoxy has good gap-filling qualities. Using a slow-set formulation allows for plenty of time to glue up the whole chair in one session. Piecemeal gluing up a chair with loose joints will cause problems!

A strap clamp or two work well for getting even pressure on those loose joints and clamping the odd, nonparallel surfaces in a typical chair. You may need a clamp or weight to push down on the seat to counteract other clamping forces.

If a chair had significant value I would use other methods.

Ed

Re: Chair joint rehab question

#6

Re: Not cheating...

Glenn Madsen back home near San Francisco


>if it works and is hidden. A good corner block makes for a better chair joint. And a repaired old chair had better be safe.

In my family, where 'petite' is for the daughter-in-laws, chairs tend to be well engineered or firewood.

Re: Chair joint rehab question

#7

I like it Glen!

Scott Burr in Ben Lomond, CA


>"Well engineered or firewood" Well said!

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