Thread: Recommended repairer for red gum dining chairs

It looks like a simple fix. One of those Mexicans should be along soon to help you out.
And stop leaning back on the chairs

Yes I agree but I need to get back to work. There is a redgum furniture place at 403 Canterbury Rd Surrey Hills. Wool Store Furniture tel (03) 9830 4499

You might give them a call
3RU

Originally Posted by bruggie

The place(s) where we had our red gum furniture made are no longer in business and I am not having much luck finding a skilled person to do this for me at a reasonable price.

Well I am not surprised that they are no longer in business. The design is a poor one. There are no stretchers to brace the legs and the splay of the legs adds even more strain onto the joints. The wracking forces on these joints over the years would have compressed the timber in the joints.

In my opinion this is not a simple repair. It is a rebuild and modify/reinforce. It would be fairly simple to patch them up to look good for a short while but it would not last long. Just my opinion based on the photos and the design of the chairs. Others may see it differently.

Cheers

Doug

Originally Posted by doug3030

Well I am not surprised that they are no longer in business. The design is a poor one.

I'm not sure I'd agree with this statement

Originally Posted by doug3030

The wracking forces on these joints over the years would have compressed the timber in the joints. In my opinion this is not a simple repair. It is a rebuild and modify/reinforce. It would be fairly simple to patch them up to look good for a short while but it would not last long. Just my opinion based on the photos and the design of the chairs. Others may see it differently.

For a "reasonable price" the chairs could be "repaired" with some steel angle or steel corner brackets but, frankly, doing such a "repair" would really really offend me. The repaired chairs might last till after next Christmas, but would not be repairable a second time.

A proper repair would involve remaking the tenons to fit the enlarged mortises. I'd remake the tenons by shaving some material from the cheeks and gluing on a layer of veneer -- which is essentially the same technique as used to fix a tenon cut undersize.

Fix is fairly straight forward... Clean cut them with a kataba/dozuki, fit monster tenons in and reinforce the brace on the underside. They'll be right.

Also, tell the kids that leaning on them with be punished

Nobody in Melbourne want this job?

Originally Posted by woodPixel

Fix is fairly straight forward... Clean cut them with a kataba/dozuki, fit monster tenons in and reinforce the brace on the underside. They'll be right.

Also, tell the kids that leaning on them with be punished

Nobody in Melbourne want this job?

I think the issue is the OP's perception of what represents a "reasonable price" for the repair
I'd guess that the OP paid something less than $250 for each chair, and is defining "reasonable cost repair" as less $50 per chair.

Out of interest, how long would it take you to repair each chair, including removing and reattaching the seat and possibly reapplying a finish?

As the OP hasn't been back on the forums since posting his request you're wasting your time to respond.

This was a 2 minute wonder.


Peter.

Originally Posted by doug3030

Well I am not surprised that they are no longer in business. The design is a poor one. There are no stretchers to brace the legs and the splay of the legs adds even more strain onto the joints. The wracking forces on these joints over the years would have compressed the timber in the joints.

In my opinion this is not a simple repair. It is a rebuild and modify/reinforce. It would be fairly simple to patch them up to look good for a short while but it would not last long. Just my opinion based on the photos and the design of the chairs. Others may see it differently.

Cheers

Doug

Well, the company I work for has been making chairs that way for 105 years. We offer a lifetime warranty and in the 9 years I've been there I can count on one hand the number of claims I've seen.

The fix is simple: Remove the old corner blocks, knock the backs off, clean off the old glue, re-glue and clamp, glue and screw in new corner blocks. Maybe 45 mins per chair.

Originally Posted by ian

I think the issue is the OP's perception of what represents a "reasonable price" for the repair.

I'd guess that the OP paid something less than $250 for each chair, and is defining "reasonable cost repair" as less $50 per chair.

Out of interest, how long would it take you to repair each chair, including removing and reattaching the seat and possibly reapplying a finish?

I saw a quote today that I posted to my FB: "Skilled labour isnt cheap. Cheap labour isnt skilled."

This was pretty good

One mans reasonable is another's expensive. After 6 years doing what I do it is always a negotiation. Unfortunately there are many jobs where I get it very wrong. Sometimes something looks very hard and it's pushed over in an hours time, sometimes it looks easy and its 10 hours work. I learn always I don't often turn away work, so Im a fool

For these chairs, I'd take a bit of a guess and call it 2 hours clamping jig creation, then 1 hour per chair for fix and 1 hour for making and installing the new under seat braces. I'm a bit lucky as I've repaired plenty of these kind of chairs in Canberra this year (for some reason). They all come from HN or one of the more blatantly commercial "homestead" style places that infect the nations capital. Its a bit of a bugger, for the timber and designs arent bad, its the build quality... there is no love. Turn them over and the braces are rubbish: poorly fitted, rudely drilled, crasly screwed (or just stapled) and unfinished. It would take 4 minutes more with a disk sander to get them perfect, but they dont even do that. It makes me sad, especially when I see the exquisitely elegant work of Evan Dunstones chairs. Now there is love.

So, back to it.... So far, it's mostly been the glue that fails. It all seemed to have crystallized or the quantity is so sparse its ridiculous. They were doomed from birth. Zero effort really. For the weird glue, its not an epoxy or even a yellow glue, but something I've yet to find (perhaps one of the new RF-set glues?). There have been a few tenon failures where its broken along the grain, mainly because of poor selection of materials to make the tenons.

Either way, its pop off the seat, saw apart the broken joints (thin kataba with blue painters tape to protect the finish), drill and fill the bad tenon, then a new MT as big as can be reasonably made (I cheated on the last job and used the big Festool Domino). The clamping jig is really what takes the time. Don't want marks from the clamps.

At a guess, I'd charge $150 setup and $100 per chair. I'd keep them for a full week as Im sporadic and tend to give the glue plenty of time.

Though, realistically, looking at the overall condition they need a resto as well which means the OP probably wouldn't pay $550 for 4 chairs to be fixed. It would be another $60 for a good sand and shoot of nitro per chair. The client can keep the jig if they want (later work!). I repair only the broken joints and the corresponding opposite one to get it apart, not all four, unless its needed.

Chairs used to worry me a great deal. They are a potential nightmare, but I've overcome that to a great extent. Ive only made a few adult chairs from absolute scratch (but HUNDREDS of kids ones), so Ive learned a lot about what a kid can do to a chair!

Glues are either TB1, 2 or epoxy (west system).

Originally Posted by woodPixel

For these chairs, I'd take a bit of a guess and call it 2 hours clamping jig creation

Clamping jig? A sash clamp and blocks will do just fine

Originally Posted by elanjacobs

Clamping jig? A sash clamp and blocks will do just fine

Mr Jacobs, you know me and accuracy. I can't help myself!

Originally Posted by woodPixel

So, back to it.... So far, it's mostly been the glue that fails. It all seemed to have crystallized or the quantity is so sparse its ridiculous. They were doomed from birth. Zero effort really. For the weird glue, its not an epoxy or even a yellow glue, but something I've yet to find (perhaps one of the new RF-set glues?)

Sounds like polyurethane. It's a pretty terrible choice for joinery imo. It will work incredibly well if the joinery is supertight, tight enough to blow the mortise cheek out when fitting the tenon! It is a great glue for edge to edge panel glueups as it doesn't creep and leave glue ridgelines after the sun hits it like PVA does.

I thought about giving a quote for this, but after 3 seconds of thought I realised that it will cost me an hour to either get the job, or get told my price is too high. And I will only get the job if the job is going to take 2 hours or less, but I have already done an hour worth of time wasting. When people ask if I can do this and that for a "reasonable price", I always follow up with the question "what kind of budget did you have in mind?" saves me wasting my time giving a quote to a person which has a fanciful figure in his/her head.

So to Bruggie: Do you have a budget in mind that you would be comfortable to spend on these chairs?

I reckon it would be about every second month that a friend of mine, knowing I am an amateur woodworker, asks me if I can look at their friend's dining chairs that are falling apart. Invariably, the chair has a ring of mortise and tennon joints just under the seat and some form of back support cross-bracing the two rear legs. No stretchers under the seat height or arms to at least reinforce the sides.

Elan, your company has been making chairs like that with few failures for 105 years. Thats great. I am not saying that EVERY chair made this way will fail. What I am saying is that EVERY chair that has failed that has been brought to me is constructed like this.

The first chairs I made, for my growing family, many years ago I made without stretchers as I did not really understand as much as I do today and reflecting my personal circumstances and why I was building my own furniture in the first place. none of the subsequent chairs I made with stretchers have failed. My intention was to describe my own experience with this style, not to cast aspersions on what your company does.

Originally Posted by Kuffy

When people ask if I can do this and that for a "reasonable price", I always follow up with the question "what kind of budget did you have in mind?" saves me wasting my time giving a quote to a person which has a fanciful figure in his/her head.

Thanks Kuffy, that is about where i was heading with my earlier reply - explaining what may be required and why the quotes may well be higher than the OP expected.

Originally Posted by Kuffy

So to Bruggie: Do you have a budget in mind that you would be comfortable to spend on these chairs?

And that is it. No sense in asking them to bring them around to see it if they expect to pay less than you can do it for. waste of your time and theirs.



Cheers

Doug

Originally Posted by doug3030

My intention was to describe my own experience with this style, not to cast aspersions on what your company does.

And my intention was to illustrate that poorly made doesn't equal poor design.