While finishing a blanket chest I’m making for my wife, a momentary lapse in common sense resulted in the lid (which had the stays removed) to fall over backwards and rip free of the filler strip to which the hinges where attached. The pictures tell the story. The damaged filler strip is glued with Titebond III to the rail as shown.
Other than a few repairable dings and scratches, the lid is fine. Obviously, the filler strip is toast. I’m too new at woodworking to have any exeperience with repairs of this magnitude. Does anybody have any advice on the best way to remove the filler strip without undue damage to the rail to which it’s glued?
Thanks to all for any help you can give. It was a heartbreaking moment when I saw the lid start to go and realized I couldn’t do anything to stop it. 🙁
-M.
Replies
Well the pics are a little fuzzy. Without being able to see it firsthand, this may or may not work. Sharp chisels will definitely be in the picture for final cleanup, but I think you should be able to use a router, edge guide, and a wide scrap rail clamped flush with the top edge for stability (so the router won't rock). I think you could remove the bulk of the toasted board (or at least the damaged section) with the router, then clean up the ends/corners with chisels and glue a new piece in.
If you build it - he will come.
Hi Mark,
It doesn't look too bad. If the broken piece is able to be salvaged then glue it back. I don't think that you need to remove the whole strip.
If the piece is not useable try to find a piece of wood that matches the grain and texture of the filler strip and make a piece to fill in the broken part. Of course you will have to prepare the damaged rail to accept the new repair.
Either use a router with a template to remove a portion of the damage and give a nice flat smooth surface to glue the repair to or use a hand plane if you have one. If you use a plane you can remove the damage at an angle so that the new repair will taper into the old filler strip and be less obvious.
You may also be able to use a chamfering bit in the router and just chisel the ends in order to make the repair less obvious.
J.P.
Mark,
I agree with doug. Rout the damaged piece away, using supports for the router. If this were an antique, you'd want to preserve as much of the original wood as possible, by patching. The repair would then become a part of the history of the piece. I doubt you want this piece of history to be preserved! You would inevitably look regretfully at the repair every time you open the lid. Replace the rail, and be satisfied that you did a good job, 1st time around. Well, 2d time...
Regards,
Ray
Now that two of us are thinking along the same lines - do you think he'd have better luck laying the chest on the front face and routing into the face of the bad board? Instead of routing in from the top edge? I thought of that last night after I posted, but I'm not sure which would be better.If you build it - he will come.
doug,
Either way. It appears that the corner posts are not flush with the case sides, so would need to lay a piece of thin ply or masonite, onto the case's side to get the router base above the corner posts. Could then run against a straightedge on the last pass, for a glueline.
Regards,
Ray
Hi Mark,
Sorry to see the mishap, but the skilled woodworker can hide anything. I agree with the rout it chisel it replace it approach.
Matching will be an issue, but it is on the back of the chest and this anomaly won't be too noticable. But, why match? David Marks (Woodworks DIY), has changed my opinion of using contrasting woods. Why not rout it out the length of the back and put in a contrasting (and strong) wood strip to replace it? Oak/maple stained very dark would contrast and look good, but that's your (read LOYL's) choice.
If it were a smaller box, i would recommend putting it on the table saw and cutting the damaged part off, and then trim the remainder of the box to the same height all the way around. Rotating it and cutting the front and ends to match. That's probably unreasonable given the size.
In any case, it looks like you do fine work. Nice job!
Regards,
Ken
"Do as you would be done by." C.S. Lewis
As jp said. Chamfer the entire rail and glue in new piece. Chamfer will hide the replacement piece on top and back. Do it carefully and you'll never notice the repair. Have fixed worse goofs more times than I care to remember.
Thanks very much everybody! I had come to pretty much the same conclusion on how to approach the repair. I know the pics are a little blurry -- it's hard to get decent depth of field when you're shooting with a flash in your basement shop -- but the filler strip is pretty much a complete disaster. As the lid fell, it tore pieces of the filler strip off into pretty small pieces -- some matchstick sized. Replacing it is the best answer.The notion of setting the chest on it's face, and routing out the damaged strip at right-angles to the direction I'd have automatically done it is brilliant -- I can control the depth of the route with more precision than I can the lateral movement when I'm free-hand routing, and as long as I avoid getting too close to the legs, I think there's no danger at all of damaging the underlying rail. Final cleanup with a sharp chisel and I think I'm home.Thanks again -- I'll report back when I'm successful!-M.
I'd say that the repair will be a complete success. The attached pictures tell the story. A bit of help from my router, L-N #4 1/2 plane, and an orbital sander and I think I'm good as new. The new filler strip in the last picture is just sitting in place -- it hasn't been glued yet, but I have reasonable confidence I can manage that operation. :-)Thanks so much to everybody who made suggestions!-M.
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