A (Very) Little Woodworking

[crokett]

My FIL has a set of dining room chairs that have been in his family for a couple generations. He values them because his mother did the needlepoint on the seat cushions as a wedding present to him. Not valuable except to him. Anyhoo, the legs have worked loose over the years and he wanted to know about fixing them. Ordinarily I'd knock them apart and reglue but the only tools he has here are a few screwdrivers, hammers and a 12v cordless drill. So we went and got a few packs of #8 screws. I took off the seats and toe-screwed and counterbored the screws through the top and bottom edges of the stretchers into the legs. It isn't perfect but they are a lot stronger now.

I wonder if I could have angled for some new clamps. We are here two weeks - plenty of time to glue a chair a day....

[lrogers]

Way to score points with the FIL David!

[poolhound]

depending on what the joints are and how big the gaps, you could get one of the hyperdermic needle glue kits and inject glue into the gaps in the joints

[crokett]

Jon,

Thought about something like that but the joints were loose enough that they'd still need the clamps anyway. Several had loosened enough that I think only the seat was keeping them from separating further.

[SARGE..g-47]

I use the hypodermic needle and little squeeze bottle I purchase at Peachtree WW on all DT's.. box joints as you can get into tight spots well without getting excessive glue everywhere. Jon's solution is viable... but yes, it would require clamps to do it right as I'm not sure a rub joint would be efficient enough on chair joints subjected to torque.

Nice "field expedient" fix on your part....

[poolhound]

Jon,

Thought about something like that but the joints were loose enough that they'd still need the clamps anyway. Several had loosened enough that I think only the seat was keeping them from separating further.

Cant quite visualize the chairs. But assuming they are standard rail type construction and it is primarily the rails that are loose had you thought of glueing and then simply using gorilla tape wrapped around the chair which should pull all the joints togther at the same time.