Busted Chairs..........

Just so you know, these chairs where given to us from a buddy that was leaving the country, they are crap, made in some factory somewhere, I'd be sitting on wooden boxes before I'd PAY for these things

The basic problem is that the glue is holding the chairs together, the angles on the mortise and tenons are all out by a fair bit. If you dry fit everything, it does not stay together.

I've fixed these chairs a few times now, the glue in them is dried out, rock hard, dunno what it is, looks almost like CA glue

Anyways, I came down for breakfast and saw this..........



My youngest daughter, Mizuki, of the micro crane fame, was sitting on it when it let go, she is all of 80 lbs soaking wet.

I cleaned all the glue I could off the tenons, and out of the mortises, then I did this to the legs..........


not pretty, but I figure when I bang it home, it might have a better chance of staying put. I used 5 minute epoxy, as the only other chair that is still hanging together I fixed with 5 minute epoxy.


There it is, all nice and snug

I dated it on the bottom, just to see how long it lasts

Cheers!

Yeah, epoxy is the only way to go with that kinda mess. I recollect in FWW or one of the other mags a few years back they had an article by a fella who made furniture and used epoxy on all of the M&Ts and such which he intentionally made to fit loose. Can't really imagine someone intentionally making loose fitting joints, but for fixin other folk's screw ups, epoxy is the ticket.

I think you've got it now ;-) famous last words. I am re-doing a dresser of equal quality and share your frustration of not being quite sure when to stop messing with the thing.

I agree - epoxy is the way to go. The only difference is that I use slow epoxy rather than the 5 minute - it's a bit stronger.

Mike

Love that signature line, Mike.

"I dated it on the bottom, just to see how long it lasts"

I can see it now. In two hundred years, there will be some professor who gets tenure based on his paper "Rethinking Ablett's Early Work", using a lengthy argument based on the unsigned but hand dated chair which somehow survived the decades, in which he (through radio spectometry) examines the early wedged tenon as an precursor of his later infamous displaced-joinery techniques...

Thanks,

Bill

I have them same chairs. The where made in the ukrane(sp?). I have had to get out the dremel remove all the epoxy and plug the holes. From there, I was able to redrill the holes and reassemble the chairs. Then after all that work. My MIL gave them away to someone. Worse part I did not even get paid for the supplies. Hopefully yours will hold up for a while.

Bill Lantry said:

I can see it now. In two hundred years, there will be some professor who gets tenure based on his paper "Rethinking Ablett's Early Work"

Click to expand...

Yer killin' me