Thread: help please with some Chair legs.

PS - the nut thing in the holes - it's called a threaded insert! yay - the things I learn!

https://www.woodworkforums.com/f11/ho...5/#post1185792

alwayscurious,

You say the wood is 'crap'. Is it? Is it pine? It may just be that the design of the chair puts too much pressure on the front legs in which case a well made hardwood leg will also fail.
There are lots of Forumites who wold do tapered legs for you but just be sure the same thing won't happen again.

Graham

Thanks for replying!

Not sure what type of wood. I suspect pine or some sort of softer wood.

I do know that it was bogged up with some white bog / filler - and it was split with the grain of the wood so wasn't designed right.

The wooden bracket I am designing would help with the weight distribution problem.

I more suspect the wood than anything

Originally Posted by alwayscurious

PS - the nut thing in the holes - it's called a threaded insert! yay - the things I learn!

I reckon that the threaded insert is a major part of the problem
Leave them out of the new legs , and screw directly into the wood .
Use glue as well

Originally Posted by alwayscurious

The wooden bracket I am designing would help with the weight distribution problem.

All the brackets will do is put more holes thru the legs , sapping them of strength. The carcase too

The wood is ok , its the metal dodads that are the problem

Those threaded inserts are brutal in the small amount of wood that's available.

You could be right. I also suspect the 'air gap' between the threaded insert, and where the head of the machine screw is tightening.

I would fill that with a wooden bracket - to help with the stress problem - that should sort it out (Once I get some new wooden legs, me hearties!!)

Yarr!


Also - here's a link to the online album with these pics: and a few more close-ups of the wood

http://picasaweb.google.com.au/jonat...eat=directlink

Close up of the wood:

Originally Posted by alwayscurious

Those threaded inserts are brutal in the small amount of wood that's available.
I would fill that with a wooden bracket - to help with the stress problem - that should sort it out

You could leave the expert decisions up to the expert who will be doing the job.
He or she may decide that increasing the thickness of the top of the legs so that a broad face of wood meets wood is the answer .

Why put more metal into a situation that has failed due to metal .

good point! it would make sense to incorporate the 'bracket' -thickness creator and the chair leg in one.

In which case I would need more measurements

Cheers
a/c

Ho alwayscurious
the leg to rail joint you have on those chairs looks like the type of joint sometimes used for lower cost tables
IMO in a chair it's a joint just waiting to fall apart -- what you have is a frame held together by a fillet attached with pocket screws which in turn holds the leg in place using a couple of threaded inserts
This arrangement is strong enough providing the wood in the chair leg holds together, which for your chairs, it clearly hasn't
I don't think "filling the air gap" will help much, as the forces are still transmitted through the edge of the leg where the threaded inserts go
what you really need to do is to reinforce the top of the leg -- stronger timber might help, as would some form of strapping or cross bolting

my inclination is to rebuild the leg to rail joint to incorporate a mortice & tenon

OK - So I am in Brisbane. Would be willing to devote a few hours and take the offending chair to a forumite for some help.

I confess my wood working skills are very basic - so I would need help to get these built.

Any takers in Northside Brisbane?

You should push the bolt back into the hole with epoxy and dril a hole and screw a big screw back in. That will fix your problem

Hi there.

It seems the consensus is some kind of new bracket system - instead of the thin 45 degree bracket - something that will wrap completly around the leg - and glue the whole darn lot together with epoxy.
Then screw it in as hard as possible, using epoxy again.

Something like this has been proposed by "Bob" another mate.


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Using my backyard carpentry skills built on necessity is the mother of all invention I would try to repair the broken legs and apply a
New brace to all front legs.

I would glue the broken leg tops back in place with the metal inserts in place. I would suggest a something better than normal pvc wood glue for this, a good epoxy glue would be best. Epiglue available from Northside marine is amazing and will provide a stronger
Finish than before the leg broke. I have also had good results with a polyurethane glue I have found at Bunnings called Visigrip or something similar but the epoxy is the stronger of the two.

I would then remove the 45 degree angle bracket fixed behind the chair leg and replace with a new brace that fits around the actual
Chair leg. It is a bit hard without drawing a picture but you would end up with a 45 degree bracket that fits snug to the top of the chair leg. Screw this bracket to the sides of the chair and if possible use longer screws to go through the new bracket and into the threaded
Inserts in the chair legs. I would also recommend using an epoxy glue when fixing this newly shaped bracket to the chair leg.

Good Luck
---

The type of arrangement used to attach hose legs sends th wrong sort of shiver down my spine. Too much mosern el-cheapo furniture is done like this

I think your mate's solution wiil provide as good a job as you are likely to get.

The problem really is that the legs are treated as a separate part of the chair. A proper job would have been done by using mortice and tenon joints and then bracing across the inside.