Chair repair

[Phil S.]

I need some ideas how to repair or perhaps more correctly resurrect this chair.  It is part of a set that belongs to my daughter's in-laws.  I owe them big time for taking care of my dog most of the summer and into the fall while I dealt with some health issues.  The chair was put together with the odd joinery used in inexpensive furniture made in Viet Nam.  My mom has a table that must have come from the same factory, made of some mystery wood and held together with hex drive truss head bolts threaded into metal inserts.  The seat is a box with an upholstered panel on top of it.  The rear rail of the box is joined to the side rail with an open mortise and tenon.  The outside corner of the box is beveled to match a bevel on the inside corner of the leg.  There were 2 threaded metal inserts in each leg and truss head bolts passed through a block fitted on the inside of the joint to mate with the inserts in the legs.  There are no other rails between the legs.

The original was bad enough, but it has been previously "repaired".  I'm not sure what originally failed, but the threads in the inserts were drilled out and a hex head bolt passed through the leg, the tenon and the beveled block, held with a washer and nut on the inside.  The beveled blocks apparently came loose and were fastened with a screw through the side rail, a #6 1-1/4" on this side and a #8 3" hex head screw on the other side.  Copious amounts of Gorilla glue were squirted into the joint in hopes of holding it together.

Much of the tenon on the back rail has been drilled away for clearance for the bolts to the legs.  The mortise has also cracked down the side rail, one visible here at the top of the side rail and another less visible on the bottom side where the side wall of the mortise has broken away.  If this joint and its mate in similar condition on the opposite side can be repaired, I think the chair can be returned to service.  The back rail of the seat box is mated with a rail between the back legs.  Two dowels in the back rail between the legs fit into holes in the seat box and 3 hex drive truss head bolts hold the two rails together.  The hole in the back rail shown here with the Gorilla glue gooped around it is one of the two holes that match the dowels while the clean hole is a passage for one of the three bolts.




My thought is to fit a block of 2" oak between the back and side rails replacing the 3/4" block used before and epoxy it to the back and side rails.  The rails join at an angle greater than 90° so it will take a bit of fiddling to get the angle right.  Then drill a hole for the bolts passing through the legs.  My concern is getting a reliable, durable joint between the rails and the block, not a lot of structural integrity left in the ends of the rails.  I'd like to avoid driving screws through the show face of the side rails, but that horse has already left the barn and it may be to only way to get a joint that will last for a while.  These won't be heirlooms no matter what I do.  Son-in-law suggests chucking this chair and its fellows and buying new ones and that may yet be the best option.

Any great ideas?  I'll accept some encouragement as well.

Phil

[jteneyck]

That looks pretty beat.  Why not just build a new box and be done with it?  Use maple or some of light colored wood, and finish to match the existing chair as best as you can.  You can beef up the construction as you proposed for the repair, and that should make it last a long time. 

John

[wood2woodknot]

John:    Why not just build a new box and be done with it?
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My thought, too - without even reading the sad story, but then I can't see the rest of the chair to see how everything fits in place. Good luck on this one. You'll be up on a pedestal if you can pull it off.

[barryvabeach]

I agree with John,  but if you feel you owe them, is it feasible to route a rabbitt into the top and bottom of the side and end rails, then glue a piece of plywood into the top and bottom.  They would be hidden from view from the front, and would lock the side and end rails better than trying from the inside.

[vitabile]

I was thinking about using pocket screws & glue to attach the oak block in the corner, but rebuilding the frame would probably produce a stronger fix.

[Paul K. Murphy]

Five will get you ten it's made of rubberwood. The rubber plantations sell the trees for rudimentary furniture.
A new frame might be best. That is one messed up chair. Without seeing it, I can't offer a specific fix.

[DogwoodTales]

Hard to read all that on my mobile device here and that pic gives a.limited perspective, but I'll offer this from my experience ...
I have made a few major chair repairs/restorations which have invloved splicing new pieces to old and adding new tennons to rails etc. Even replacing some pieces. The spliced joinery and new pieces will most likely show unless you employ a dark gell stain.
Always make sure to remove all old glue to ensure a good new bond. Also food for thought ... As Bob Flexner says it is not necessary to use mechanical fasteners and sometimes those will actually be inferior to adding new wood.
If this chair has a strong emotional tie to the owner the hard work you put into it can be rewarding to you in unexpected ways.
On one particular chair restore I did i was told the owner actually cried with joy. That's something that can't be bought.

[Phil S.]

I  don't think there is any emotional attachment to this chair.  The set was someone else's cast off, found along the road.  Thanks for all the great ideas, but I went with my initial idea of epoxying in a larger fitted block to beef up the joint.  Here's the result- 



I sanded the remnants of the Gorilla glue off the faces before I glued on the fitted maple blocks and left them long to give them as much glue surface as reasonable.  The bolts through the legs and blocks are from the previous repair attempts and I chose to retain them.  Not an elegant solution, but worthy of the original joinery and cost of the chair.  The fastening of the front legs is more complicated with what I think are mortises into the legs, dadoes on the interior faces of the front and side rails to received "tongues" from the angled reinforcing blocks and truss head bolts through the blocks  into threaded metal inserts in the backs of the legs.  Another repair drove screws through the front legs, front to back and side to side into the end grain of the rails.  A split from that attempt can be seen in the front rail.  All in all, my son-in-law's recommendation of burning these and getting new ones may still be the best option.  I haven't looked at the other chairs in the set, but this one should hold up at least as long as the others, another week or two anyhow.

Phil