This is the time of year for garage
sales here in Iowa. And I had a couple ofwobbly old wooden chairs I wanted to
unload. But I knew I'd have to repair them to get them to sell.
The loose joints had been repaired by an earlier owner with nails -- not only
ugly, but nails don't work for long. So I thought I'd try gluing a wood shaving
around the loose tenons on the rungs (stretchers) to increase their diameter and
help "fill up" the mortises in the legs. Pretty simple, but it works.
First, I disassembled the legs and cleaned the old glue off the tenons and out
of the mortises. The rungs were oak and the tenons were only about 3/4" deep
in the legs. I had some oak in my scrap bin that was about that thick. A couple
passes with a hand plane and I had some shavings -- maybe 1/32" thick.
Next I applied glue to each tenon and wrapped a shaving around them. Then, before
the glue on the tenons was completely dry, I applied some glue in the mortises
and inserted the tenons.
I wrapped each leg assembly in a band clamp (which seemed totally unnecessary,
by the way), and let the joints dry for a couple hours. After I did all this,
it occurred to me that I was really doing it at the wrong time of the year. I
should be doing it in the winter time when the humidity is down and wood is at
its driest. But it's too late now. If the chairs loosen up again, they're somebody
else's problem. :-)
Go to Tip #15 |
