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<!—-><!—-><!—-><!—-><!—-><!—-><!—->I have a foot board of a “spool bed” which needs repair. It is a family piece built about 1890. The top portion of the foot board is a horizontal ladder, with two rails connected with spindles. The top rail is diagonally split. I could glue it, but I am afraid the glue joint will fail without some addition support. The bottom rail is unglued to the two side posts, thus allowing it to rotate putting pressure on the split. I could glue the bottom rail but would need to remove the side post which appears to be pinned with a wooden dowel to a heavy bottom connecting rail. Does anyone have any ideas how to repair it?
Tom
p.s.Is there ways of attaching a small picture.
Replies
Hi Tom:
Yes there is a way of attaching a small picture and I recommend that you do that so we can better visualize your problem.
When you click "reply" to this message, you should see a button at the bottom of the edit window that says "attach a file." It's right next to the spell checker. Click that button and then browse for the photo on your desktop.
If you can, resize the image to no more than 500 pixels wide so that it is easy to open and view.
Once we see a photo, someone here should be able to help.
Regards,
Matt Berger
Fine Woodworking
P.S. if you are using a Safari or Firefox Web browser, the image upload feature might not be available to you. In that case send it as an attachment to [email protected], and address your email to the attention of Matt Berger.
Here is the picture the foot board of a “spool bed” which shows the break in the top horizontal rail. It is a family piece built about 1890. The top rail is diagonally split. I could glue it, but I am afraid the glue joint will fail without some addition support. The bottom rail is unglued to the two side posts, thus allowing it to rotate, putting pressure on the split. I could glue the bottom rail but would need to remove the side post which appears to be pinned with a wooden dowel to a heavy bottom connecting rail. Does anyone have any ideas how to repair it?
That is a very weak design, made even more fragile by apparently having the grain at the break going at a steep angle across the length of the rail. I'm surprised the piece managed to survive more than a century.
There is nothing you can do to reinforce the rail invisibly. You could add a crest to the top of the rail that might work with the design, but it will certainly change the look of the bed.
Any good wood glue will serve to rejoin the two halves of the rail. If the bed were treated gently, a simple repair, without reinforcement, might survive indefinitely.
The best glue to use would be hide glue. Hot hide glue would be my first choice, but the cold type is probably adequate. I'm suggesting hide glue because if the joint breaks again, which is likely, it is the only glue that will allow you to reglue the joint again without having to remove all of the old glue, which is very hard to achieve.
If you don't use hide glue, ordinary yellow carpenters glue will work, but it will make future repairs, if the rail breaks again, more difficult.
I'm sorry that I can't come up with a fix that would be both strong and keep the look of the bed, but there isn't a lot to work with when the rails are that thin.
John White
Thanks
Tom
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