Chair repair advice

Disc Jockey

I have a couple of chairs that we are refinishing and reupholstering to match with our new furniture. The problem is the front legs have seperated from the seat frame. The legs are only glued to the chair frame, no dowels, mortice/tenon etc. IMO, a very poor design. At one point my wife tried to fix them by gluing them back together. In addition to making a huge mess cause she used way too much glue, it didn't work.

I am looking for opinions as to the best way to fix this problem. All fixes have to be invisible once we get the fabric cover back on the bottom of the chair. I have three ideas:
1. Screw a 1x to the inside of the seat rail and then another over the top of it to overlap the chair leg and then screw in to the leg.
2. Screw in eyehooks in the front and back chair rails. Attach wire to them with a tensioner in the middle and then tension until tight. The wood does seem fairly soft and I'm a little worried about the eyehooks pulling out.
3. Drill from the top through the side rails and in to the chair leg support. As you can see from the pics, the chair leg supports don't line up exactly under the chair rails so this might be a little tricky.

Comments/suggestions? Any options have to be available to someone of moderate, not advanced, skill level. And no, junking the chairs and buying new is not an option. Thanks.

Pic 1 is how the joint is supposed to look. Pic 2 shows one of the legs that has the corner broken off - may be an additional challenge.

F1nut

The top of the legs are doweled into the side rails, they have to be or there's no way the chairs would be useable. The only way to repair the chairs is to knock them apart, clean out the old glue, do any repairs like replacing broken dowels, reglue and clamp overnight. Do not use Gorilla glue, regular wood glue is best. Do NOT use screws, period. After you've got them reglued, add glue blocks/corner braces to the inside corners, all four of them.

By the time you finish buying clamps, lumber and add in your time, you might find it easier to have them done by a pro.

PolknPepsi

Really should go at it from the outside through to solid wood with a long 4" screw then cover the screw head with putty and touch up with paint.

It's either that or completely dis-assemble the chair then clean all glue off and reglue everything. Not too many options. Tough choices.

Gotta run & I'll check back later this evening to see what you decided.

edited: changed the length of said screw.

F1nut

Let me repeat.

NO EFFING SCREWS!!!

Disc Jockey

F1nut wrote:

The top of the legs are doweled into the side rails, they have to be or there's no way the chairs would be useable.

I'll take your word on this. The one chair has quite a bit of play and I did not see any dowels when I looked. But given your experience I'm inclined to believe that I just didn't look closely enough or couldn't see them rather than you're wrong.

Given that there doesn't look like any easy way to do this repair correctly I think that I'll just take your advice and have a pro do them. I contacted the upholstery shop and they do repairs also and I've been pretty impressed with their operation and attitude. I don't mind buying new tools etc if I'm going to get a lot of use out of them but I don't see that happening here. Plus I'm pretty confident that it will get done right rather than a flip of the coin if I do it.

Guess I'll use the time I save to build some raised garden beds instead. Thanks for the advice F1 and P&P.

DJ

VR3

In the best redneck accent I can exagerate -

"Pull out dem Liquid Nails!!!"

Haha, listen to Jesse - he knows his stuff.

Disc Jockey

LOL, you can see from the pics what happened the last time we pulled out adhesives. And yes Jesse, that was Gorilla glue.

VR3

Poly glue is ok.... (not really)

It makes one huge effing mess... who wants expanding glue!!!???

PolknPepsi

F1nut wrote:

Let me repeat.

NO EFFING SCREWS!!!

............:D

PolknPepsi

Disc Jockey wrote:

F1nut wrote:

Given that there doesn't look like any easy way to do this repair correctly I think that I'll just take your advice and have a pro do them.

Guess I'll use the time I save to build some raised garden beds instead. Thanks for the advice F1 and P&P.

DJ

Your Welcome.
And good choice to let a pro do it.

bikezappa

F1nut wrote:

By the time you finish buying clamps, lumber and add in your time, you might find it easier to have them done by a pro.

Like most things in life, the first time you do anything you screw it up. You try it again with some improvement. By the third time you may be able to do it OK.

So the question is do you plan on ever fixing chairs again in your life.

If no, then bring them to a pro and pay the short money.

If yes, then maybe you will be in the chair repair business.

Good luck and NO Screws.

shawn474

I realize that there has been a "NO EFFIN' SCREWS" alert, but my wife and I had a very similar looking antique dining room set that we inherited after her grandparents passed away. The exact same thing happened to us. What I did was use a Dremel tool on the inside of the chair frame to notch out an area where "L" brackets would fit. I did this at each corner of each chair. I used VERY SMALL screws to attach the "L" bracket and glued the joints with a heavy duty wood glue and then I filled it in with wood putty and sanded it. Couldn't see the screws or the brackets. Stained it and it looks great. Maybe not the exact thing that you are looking for, but it worked for us. The chairs are definitely more sturdy than they were before, but I completely understand the "no screws" belief. Hope this helps.

Take Care,
Shawn

dorokusai

Jesse helped me build a railing and banister for my split foyer home using 80% dowel and wood glue. It's much stronger than my previous version of the railing via lag and screw and I couldn't be happier.

We don't call him the Wood Jedi for nothing.

Disc Jockey

I don't think that the screw/L bracket idea will provide enough strength for me on these chairs, especially since I'm beginning to think the dowels have broken. The way the legs are shaped puts a lot of forward pressure on them. These are also fairly deep chairs so when people sit in them they tend to sit down with a backward motion and that tends to rock the legs even more. I'm not sure a couple of small screws would be enough to hold it and I don't think the glue will bond well enough if I don't clean all the old glue off first. But thanks for the suggestion. I do like the extra support that would give in the corners though, which is why I assume Jesse suggested the corner blocks.

What I'm running in to now is between the reupholstering and chair repair I think this is going to come out to a fair amount more than we could buy new chairs for.

goingganzo

the olny way i would use screws is in the wedge braces on the inside i say sit in them till they break and have good laff when your a-ss is in the floor

shawn474

I think I have a weekend project now. I never even thought of the corner blocks to help support the chair. I'm going to add these to each of our chairs. Hopefully that will help them last a little longer. You never know what good advice you'll get by coming to this forum!

F1nut

What I'm running in to now is between the reupholstering and chair repair I think this is going to come out to a fair amount more than we could buy new chairs for.

This is often the case. Of course, top quality chairs will cost you more than you think.