Getting well plus cabin fever equals fixing a chair

kw: photo essays, home maintenance, repairs, diy

I was sick with a bad cough and recurring fever for about a week, the longest bout of "cold" I can remember. I needed lots of "horizontal time" in bed. A visit to the doctor three days ago brought the cheery news that I had a sinus infection and middle ear infection tagging along, which bought me antibiotics and steroids. Oh Joy! By yesterday morning I had too much energy to sleep all day, but I was still coughing too much for public consumption, so I took apart a wobbly dining room chair and re-glued it. Just for fun, here is the process.

Disclaimer: I am no pro, as you'll easily see. But I've done this enough over the years to be able to get it done in a couple of hours (of my work time, not total time) instead of several days. The glue I use is Titebond II Premium Wood Glue. All these photos are either 800 or 1024 pixels in the long dimension. Click on a photo to see it that size. (There are two pairs that I montaged.)

1) The seat (bottom right, upside down) attaches with 4 screws. The corners of the main frame have 8 more screws holding 4 corner braces. I started by removing all those.

2) Then I used the tip of a chisel to pry open joints that were loose, starting at the front of the chair.

All the pegs holding the joints were firmly glued at one end and loose at the other, except for the two holding the lower brace (the "H" shape at upper right), which was solidly together. At top left are the two front legs; below them the sides and front of the seat support frame. The three bits scattered inside the "H" are corner braces. One corner brace was very firmly attached on one side and I left it alone.

3) This closeup shows that the first gluing needs to be done to close cracks in the structural members. I started by applying some force to open the cracks a little more and then taking a finger-ful of glue and rubbing it into each crack. Then it is ready to clamp and wipe clean.

This shows a joint in the clamp, with glue being squeezed out, ready to wipe up. If the clamp must press onto a crack that will leak glue, I pre-squeeze it by hand and wipe what I can, and use wax paper between the piece and the clamp. The next two photos show various clamps and a vise holding these pieces while they dry. It takes about an hour. With the metal C-clamp I use pine wood blocks to protect the work piece.

4) Once all three seat frame were solid, I assembled the two side supports to the chair back, and also added the "H" strut. This entailed putting glue on all the pieces for one side at a time. In the case of the glue for the corner braces, I was careful not to get glue in the screw holes, so in the future the screws can be removed. After spreading the glue, I tightened the screws and those were set. I looked along them from the side to be sure they were lined up.

For the "H" brace, I just spread glue on the mating surfaces and the pins and pressed them into place, also sighting to get it square.

5) I assembled the front next, the front legs and the front seat support. There was a little wrinkle in getting the legs on, which I'll get into in a moment. But first, I was clamping them with a furniture clamp when one of the legs twisted and cracks opened in its top. So I put glue in the cracks and used the vise to hold that while all the joints dried. I made sure the legs were parallel. Note the blocks of wood in the vise, holding the leg being clamped. Pine blocks are softer than oak so they won't bruise the wood or mar the finish (though that is pretty beat up already from decades of use).

6) Once the front assembly was set, I put glue on all remaining joints and pressed it into place. Then I put the chair on the floor and used a furniture clamp to clamp the seat support, and a rope, looped four times, to clamp at the bottom to hold the "H" brace and provide added support while everything dried. I used a section of floor that I already know is flat so I could press down the chair every-which-way so it would not rock when it was finished.

7) Now to the wrinkle I mentioned. In one end of the front assembly there was glue at the bottom of the holes the pegs go into, that held them back from seating fully. Yeah, I know they came out of there, but wood can subtly shift, and in the two pictures below the one on the left shows a gap that I could not close. Trying to close it caused the cracks in the leg I mentioned in step 5.

I made thin shims by splitting veneer from scraps of paneling and glued them into place all around to fill the gaps and strengthen the joint.

8) Finally, I glued the corner braces and screwed them into place. And now, voila! The finished chair, ready for the seat to be screwed on.