Thread: Old Chair Leg Repair

A friend of a client came around with a chair he needed fixed based on the recommendation of my other client (which was good to hear). I said I was happy to do the leg, but I wasn't a chair maker, but he convinced me to give it a go still (I must be too cheap). He said it was Teak, that I didn't have, but he was happy to use Blackwood of which I had plenty.

broken chair.jpg

The first job was taking off the old decorative brackets that he said were held on with small pins. Small pins my ar_e, forged steel spikes that were bent over on the other side. Then I cut the old legs off with a very fine kerf saw through what was a tendoned joint.

decorative bracket.jpg cut leg off.jpg

I then turned a piece of Blackwood from my stash to match the good leg by eye (yeh perhaps I should have measured the details a bit more but near enough).

new turned leg.jpg

With some scraps I tested some Danish Oil and decided the new leg needed some stain as the Teak was a lot yellower and darker from age. So I started with some Maple stain I had, followed by some yellow dye powder I had mixed with some spirit, and after a few trials thought it was pretty dam close. I applied a coat of Danish Oil too on the exposed faces before rejoining up all the joints using 4 large dowels per joint (after washing with thinners and using Titebond III) and clamping for a couple of days. After shortening the spikes I re-attached the decorative brackets and then applied another couple of coats of Danish Oil and it was all done.

chair finished 1.jpg chair finished 2.jpg

Although you can see a difference between the joining timber and the leg, there is little difference between the legs, so I am pretty happy with end result.