Thread: Repairing Wooden chairs

I have seen a product called I think Chair Doctor. We had it in our local mitre 10. I dont knoiw how good it is though.

Donna

I would be pulling them apart, cleaning the joints and re-assembling.

Use masking tape to identify the parts and their orientation before dismantling. Sometimes I take heaps of digital photos of all the tricky bits before dismantling so when you are assembling - how the @#$%%@@ did that bit go again?

You may need to build up the tenons or the mortices again or use wedges.

Quick fixes rarely work and end up being more trouble and take longer than doing it correctly in the first place.

Originally Posted by QbnDusty

Need some help with re glueing some wooden high chairs used at the breakfast bar. They are a few years old and the glue in the joints has gone and they are wobbly. Only held together now by friction and gravity.
Seem to remember seeing an Ad for a glue to fix the wobbly chair problem but cannot remember where. I know that if the glue used in manufacture was animal glue then it has to be cleaned off before you can use a modern glue such as PVA, but the joints will then become looser and a gap filling type would be required.
Any help from the experts out there would be much appreciated.

Hi there. I repair chairs for a hotel in Perth. The deal is this: You don't want to put new glue on old glue. So the parts generally need to be cleaned before reassembly. The mortices are generally of a specific size, and if they are round, I use a forstner bit in the drill press to quickly clean them out. A quick sand on the male parts and you're ready to go. For taking chairs apart, I use a Bessey clamp (not very expensive either) that has a switch which makes it possible to make the jaws spread rather than pull together. Very useful for "popping" the old ones.

For glue....easy one there! I use a product that I would recommend highly called "Techniglue" which is a two-pack epoxy. It is very slow setting, so that gives plenty of work time...and it has the consistency of Vaseline. Not runny. I buy it in Perth from a company called Fibreglass and Resin Sales. Here are the contact details:

www.fiberglass-resin-sales.com.au
Tel: 08 9470 2571
Email: [email protected]

They should be able to help you with whatever you need.

Hope that helps!

Cheers...
Big Mike

Thanks fellas.
Managed to source some Chair Doctor glue and used it on one chair to see how well it works. Seems OK at the moment but will give it a few days use to verify. If it fails will then go the Techni glue way, might get some anyway to have a good gle in the workshop.
Regards.

Chair Doctor PVA is very thin with a very low viscosity, so it will seep into joints that cannot be taken apart, but still need some glue.
The best solution is (if at all possible) is to dismantle any loose joints, clean well, as suggested, and re-glue with a quality glue.

Must try this "Techniglue".

one really quick fix and not permenant is to soak the chair joints, they will swell. otherwise if the gap is too big ,fox wedges can be used with animal glue for an invisible joint fix Bob

Hi QBN Dusty,

That's very sound advice from Cellist. Clearly another poor bugger who has fallen on hard times and had to resort to fixing chairs which is one of the world's worst tasks. I concur that you need a first class gap filling epoxy and you need to clean off all the old glue first. I use International Paints brand "Epiglue" that is a slow cure two pack epoxy available from any yacht chandler. It's quite expensive but excellent stuff for that work. Another thing I'd be giving attention to if the design of the chairs permits is to fit new close fitting glue blocks. I usually fit these after the chair or stool has been rejoined and the glue has cured. That way you can shave them to fit exactly with a mitre saw or even better a guillotine. Don't try to re-use old glue blocks it's not worth the effort of trying to get the glue off and the angle never seems to be quite the same as before and its essentiual to get a first class fit. (as it is with all joionery!!) Good luck. Old Pete

I have just been viewing a video on Gorilla Glue for repairing chairs. It is a one-component moisture hardening polyurethane adhesive. Probably the same a Selleys Durabond (Where people have reported problems in the past!) Maybe misting with water is the answer?
Is Gorilla Glue available in Australia?
View Video at:
http://www.gorillaglue.com/glues/gorillaglue/index.aspx

Hilton

Hi hap97

Regarding your query re Gorilla Glue Yes it is available in OZ. I would not use an expanding polyurethane glue for this application. These glues are just adept at coming back out the gaps where you have refitted the joints in stretchers stiles and rails and the job is a real pain to clean up in consequence. It doesn't matter whether that's relatively easy to do when the glue is half cured because its a hell of a lot easier not to have to do it at all which is the case if you use epoxy carefully so there is no squeeze out at all.

I'm not knocking polyurethane glues, they have their place but that place is where clean up is easily accessible such as in edge joining.

Yes you can start the process of curing very rapidly with polyurethane glues by wiping the surfaces with a damp rag just prior to bringing the surfaces together. Equally you can achieve the same with epoxy by running a heat gun over the surfaces before bringing them together.

Why are we in such a hurry. I work commercially and I almost always leave the glue to cure O/N in cramps on all jobs. It's a question of organizing your work day to suit the pragmatics of the tasks in hand. That's easy to do for me. Sometimes I'm in a hurry to correct mistakes before anyone else knows about them but that's not often.
old pete