Question about repairing a dining chair
Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2018 8:44 pm
My wife and I have a set of Amish-made cherry dining chairs that have gone through 18 hard years of child-rearing. They’re all getting loose, and some of the joints on the one my son had been using failed completely. I just took the failed joints apart as the first step in repairing them, and found a broken a wood screw going from the corner bracket (in the apron) into the back leg/stile. Undoubtedly from my son leaning back on it.
All of the apron members and the stretchers have tenons that fit into mortises in the legs. They appear to be well made, but the glue has failed completely. All of the tenons on the stretchers had been been pinned into their mortises with a finishing nail from an air nailer, presumably instead of clamping them up while the glue dried. Fortunately, the finishing nails bent like noodles when I pulled the loose joints apart. I can just clip them off inside the mortises and grind them flush with a dremel tool.
So here’s my question. The old glue in the joints appears to be PVA, and it’s a pretty thin layer. Assuming that the the joints still fit together properly, should I just reglue them with Titebond?
Taking off the old glue layers and re-gluing with epoxy would probably be stronger, but I’m not eager to invest that much time. Does anyone have a good repair method that’s reasonably quick & easy?
All of the apron members and the stretchers have tenons that fit into mortises in the legs. They appear to be well made, but the glue has failed completely. All of the tenons on the stretchers had been been pinned into their mortises with a finishing nail from an air nailer, presumably instead of clamping them up while the glue dried. Fortunately, the finishing nails bent like noodles when I pulled the loose joints apart. I can just clip them off inside the mortises and grind them flush with a dremel tool.
So here’s my question. The old glue in the joints appears to be PVA, and it’s a pretty thin layer. Assuming that the the joints still fit together properly, should I just reglue them with Titebond?
Taking off the old glue layers and re-gluing with epoxy would probably be stronger, but I’m not eager to invest that much time. Does anyone have a good repair method that’s reasonably quick & easy?