Shopsmith Forums

Hi guys:

I inherited this cool old oak rocking chair almost 15 years ago. My parents bought it an estate auction back in 1969, covered at the time in maroon Naugahyde. My mother later had it recovered in the fabric that you see in the photo. Based on the other furniture from that auction, I'd guess that the chair dates back to the 1930's or 40's.
It's been used constantly since it's been in my family, and has gone through two generations of kids and a couple cats. Time for a structural rebuild and reupholstering. The dowel joints have partially to completely failed, and I could use some advice on re-doweling them. As for the upholstery, I'll leave that to a pro.
Fortunately, all of the components have a flat surface that can be clamped to the table of my Shopsmith, leaving the face of the joint perpendicular. Perfect for horizontal boring.

The joints were already getting loose when I was a teenager. Being an enthusiastic but untrained do-it-yourselfer even then, I attempted repairs by squirting wood glue into the seams, not knowing that attempting to glue the end-grain was futile. But a 12" sanding disc will take off that glue quick & easy.

The double-dowel joints use 7/16" dowels, and the single-dowel joints use 1/2" dowels. Some of the bores have been wallowed out a bit, others have broken dowels in them, and all of them have a coating of ancient glue of an unknown type. My tentative plan is to bore everything out to 5/8", and replace all the dowels with high-quality 5/8" oak dowels. For empty bores, I can get near-perfect alignment by using the proper-sized drill bit to locate the hole while clamping. Holes with broken-off dowels will be a little more challenging.

Questions:

1) I'd normally use a brad-point bit for boring dowel holes in new wood. But with an existing hole, are they still the best choice? I could also use a step reamer to start the enlarged hole, and then change over to a different bit to take it to full depth.

2) Any advice on centering the holes that have broken-off dowels in them? I do plan to resurface the end-grain of the joint first with a sanding disk, so in most cases I'll have a reasonably flat dowel surface to work with.

3) 5/8" or 3/4" dowels for the rebuild? I think that there's enough meat for 3/4" dowels, but perhaps I should reserve that for when my grandkids have to rebuild it again.

4) What kind of glue? Titebond is my usual wood glue. But I'll sometimes use epoxy for structural repairs, if the mating surfaces don't have a good tight fit.

Thanks in advance!

When you bore out the old broken dowel on the one side, could you center a small bore in the replacement dowel and use the nail trick to mark the other broken dowel for the center of the "new" bore? Or... "center" bore the broken dowel on one side before creating the new bore, put your pilot hole in with the said nail for marking, that way your centers are on both sides?

Just spitballing ....

Being the age it is, it may be hide glue. If so, heat will soften it. heat and moisture if needed.

I think hide glue now is still appropriate.

Assuming you are successful getting the old dowels out, I would make new ones to fit the existing holes. rather than the dicey process of redrilling.

rjent wrote:When you bore out the old broken dowel on the one side, could you center a small bore in the replacement dowel and use the nail trick to mark the other broken dowel for the center of the "new" bore? Or... "center" bore the broken dowel on one side before creating the new bore, put your pilot hole in with the said nail for marking, that way your centers are on both sides?

Just spitballing ....

Dick, you reminded me that I recently ordered a set of proper dowel centers. I think. I couldn't find them, so maybe they are still on a wish list somewhere.

But that gave me another idea. If I do bore these out oversize, I could first drill out the broken dowels, and then glue in a temporary same-size dowel ... just so I could cut them off flush and have a solid workpiece for center-marking and re-boring. Accuracy wouldn't matter for the temporary dowel.

It turns out the the major PITA for this project will be removing the gazillion staples used by my mother's reupholsterer. If one is good, then six must be even better. They are copper, I think, and brittle. I spent about four hours on that today, and am still only about a third done.

In the process, I learned that the Naugahyde was not the original upholstery on this chair, even though it was introduced in the 1930's. More like the third upholstery, based on the many generations of fastener holes in the oak, amongst those gazillion staples. So the chair is probably older than I thought. I may have to replace some oak where it is most badly riddled.

JPG wrote:Being the age it is, it may be hide glue. If so, heat will soften it. heat and moisture if needed.

I think hide glue now is still appropriate.

Assuming you are successful getting the old dowels out, I would make new ones to fit the existing holes. rather than the dicey process of redrilling.

You may be right about that, Red. I took apart a few more joints this afternoon, that I definitely did not attempt to reglue as a teenager. Several of them had nails driven through them, by a "craftsman" even worse than my teenage self.

I'll hit those joints with a heat gun tomorrow and see what I can learn.

BuckeyeDennis wrote:I'll hit those joints with a heat gun tomorrow and see what I can learn.

Hot water will also help break the bond.

JMO and thinking out side the box , you may get by with sanding the old dowels off flush and either relocating a new set of dowels, or drilling them out as you describe , if it is hide glue as you know you can loosen them up drill a small hole in them and insert a screw to help remove them , if it is hide glue and you use fresh hide glue it will / should bond , not sure how you will make a relief hole for when you put them together ? .when I first started repairing antique furniture and was exploring different glue I had a piece that would not bond , I was using the yellow glue and IMO the hide glue just didnt like it , I over sized the hole and used a larger dowel and life was good . Today I use my own hide glue made from rawhide dog bones and it works very well .

LOL So how did the chair turn out and how did you make the repairs ?

I got the chair dismantled, but the components are still stored in my attic for now. Should be a good retirement project someday.

In addition to the original glue, there’s some PVA glue from an earlier amateur repair attempt. So my plan is to drill out the old dowels, disc-sand the glue off of the mating faces, and reassemble with larger dowels. The fun part will be figuring how to make and/or align doweling jigs for all thosed curved pieces.

Good plan dude Hope to see the completion of this retirement project, I'm sure it will look great!