I have posted pictures of kitchen chairs which have been repaired unsuccessfully several times with glue and clamps.
The cross bars don’t break, they just keep coming undone. Is there anything I can do, apart from buying new ones. They are heavy chairs and the dining room table is still in top form, so if I can, I’d like to keep them.
Is the entire structure of the chair wrong or could I just buy new chair bases, or would that be more expensive than new chairs? Open to all suggestions.
Thanks, very much.
Replies
Paddy,
When you say that "the cross bars keep coming undone," do you mean that the rectangular pieces of wood at the top of the legs are coming loose from the seats/backs? Or are you saying that the stretchers between the legs are coming loose? Most of the time the problem with these kind of chairs is that the dowels come out because most of the gluing surface is end grain, but your pictures don't show that. If the seats are coming off of the legs, screw the cross bars to the seats utilizing slotted holes for the screws in the cross bars to allow for expansion and contraction of the seats. If the stretchers are coming loose, glue them again and use small brads to pin them in position. I also noticed that the chair legs don't sit flat on the floor. To fix this, sit the chairs on a flat surface. Take a compass and set it so that the pencil is just above the highest point of the slant and the pointed end is on the flat surface. Trace a line on the leg. It will be parallel to the flat surface. Use a hand saw and cut the legs to the line. The chairs will be a little lower, but they'll be flat on the floor. Replacement bases are probably not available and would costly. Hope this helps.
Jim
Salvaging your chairs
Paddy:
Your problem I'm afraid, is the way these were manufactured! In my experience chairs made like this will just continue to fail over and over. You can continue to reglue but I think you'll end up with the problem coming back. Two things you could try as a last resort and because these are not really high quality chairs; 1. Clean up the broken joints and use an epoxy to re-adhere the parts. or 2. If the joints can be cleaned of all previous glue and are tight fitting (likely not the case) you could try using a blind wedge and glue approach to spread the tenon end from inside the joint.. If the joints are tight fitting and you use a quality glue the blind wedging approach may do the trick.
How about doing some reading about chair making and maybe taking a class to learn how to make beautiful new chairs that won't come apart? I've got a stool in my shop that has been used and abused for almost 20 years and it is just as stiff and stable as the day it was made and there is not one bit of glue or any nail to be found. A dear friend of mine makes and sells them at craft shows, he works with green wood and very basic handtools and wow's his audiences as he makes chairs and stools right before their eyes!
Best of luck!
Madison
Either Or
It is correct that these chairs were never great chairs, but did at one time pass for chairs. They are loosely (pun intended) based upon a Windsor construction, but fall way short. One look at real Windsor construction will tell you the engineering and design that is a Windsor is just not in these chairs, and can never be added.
If these then are disposable, then there is nothing wrong with epoxy and a nail or screw to squeeze some more life out of them. Often this will stay tight and the next joint will fail - probably at the top seat rail, or the cross stretcher. One could spend quite a bit of time chasing the next loose joint, so to speak.
I would advise seeking a real Windsor maker (M Dunbar comes to mind) and either learn how to make the chairs properly, or have them made. They will easily outlive you, weigh half what these do, be more comfortable, look better and give you a nice feeling of satisfaction that you have something of high quality at hand.
As for affordability, compare a hand made chair to factory with cost over time. 500 yrs ago, only royalty had chairs. One of the first benefits of the Industrial Revolution was chairs (nearly) for the masses. The better examples survived, and the engineering evolved, along with the knowledge of the properties of wood.
Dave S
http://www.acornwoodworks.com
stretchers
I have had problems with chairs like this as well and had limited success with regluing them. I screwed the stretcher from the opposite side of the hole for the stretcher. Depending on the depth of the hole for the stretcher, there is usually enough room to plug the screw hole and refinish to make it invisible mend. To make the fix permanent put some gorilla glue on the screw when you screw it into the stretcher end, (watch out for foaming out of the hole), so put a little on the end of the screw. The chairs I have used this on have not had a problem with coming apart. Gorilla glue works well for fixes in where the parts are smaller due to age or crushing because of the gap filling properties of this glue. Test this out on scrap to get a feel for the right amount of glue to apply. You can use furniture wax, before gluing and taking apart the joint, to make sure the glue that seeps out wont stick to the outside area of your wood joint before gluing . I use mcfeely's screws because of the deep thread and have never had one come loose. Mcfeely's screws and gorilla glue are permanent.
Epoxy Adhesive
IN the shop I was involved with we did quite a bit of furniture repair. Slow set, two part epoxy was the preferred adhesive unless we were dealing with a certified real antique. Epoxy only requires that the joint be cleaned of old adhesive and that is be relatively structurally sound. Epoxy is slightly elastic which means that the racking forces that are present in a joint of that type of construction can "give" without the adhesive failing. A non-flexible adhesive will crack and fail when subjected to racking forces.
So, open up all the joints on one side. Don't just fix the ones that are loose. If you do and another joint fails at a later date you will have to redue the work you have already done. Scrap off the old adhesive from both the tenon and the hole. It doesn't have to be "virgin wood". Do a couple of dry fits to be sure everything fits together correctly and you know how you are going to keep the joints together. With epoxy, tight clamping is not required. In fact, tight clamping will weaken an epoxy glued joint. Apply your adhesive, clamp it up and let it cure.
BTW, epoxy adhesive can be opened up at a later time. Use a heat gun or an infrared heat lamp. It's not much harder to open up an epoxied joint than a joint where PVA or hide glue was used. The epoxy glued joint should last forever even though that type of construct puts a lot of pressure on the joints..
Don't use a nail or a screw. If the joint ever opens up again, you will have to deal with a badly deformed or damage piece of wood.
Do one chair first to learn how to do it.
jus' wonderin'
While reading thru this thread, I got to wondering. PL Premium is a polyurethane construction adhesive that will glue anything to anything. Masonry, metal, wood, etc. I've even used it to glue the soles of some cheap work boots back on. After 5 years of frequent wear they're still there. Unlike Gorilla Glue type polys, there's no expansion. The general feeling in the trades is that the PL Premium will be around long after whatever it was used on has turned to rust or dust. It does have some body, so it wouldn't be useful where thin glue lines are needed, but from my experience in using it, I think it would be an ideal solution in cases like this.
Has anyone ever tried it?
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