Shopsmith Forums

SWMBO invited one of her friends over for dinner the other day(she is very large). There was a little mishap at the dinner table. A chair back broke. It was fastened with 4 3/4in tenons.
This was my repair:
I drilled the broken tenons out of the chair bottom and cut the broken tenons off of the chair back spindles.

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Next I Made a shop built jig to cradle the spindles and set up the SS to bore the spindles.

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The next step was to cut 3/4in dowels epoxy them into the chair back spindles and glue everything back together.

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Without the SS I am not sure how this could have been accomplished this easily.

PS. We purchased the table and chairs about 1977

Thanks for posting this. Broken round tenons are an issue from time to time on these types of chairs. Often times you see them at estate sales and auctions with one or more "repaired spindles" with a nail or screw driven into the remant of the tenon because there's not a whole lot more that the average homeowner can do.

Your solution is an excellent one, invisible and likely as strong if not stronger than the original. Outstanding repair job and a great example of something that, as you say, was easily done on a Shopsmith that would be very difficult in a home workshop not equipped with one.

Al

I've repaired a number of chairs the same way. When I do it, I use a very hard wood like hickory to get additional strength. Done correctly, it should outlast the original.

I don't know alot about "pet fish", but you need to feed that guppy on the left, he's lookin a bit thin.....