ablethevoice
boatanchors rule!
My wife asked me to repair a couple of chairs which are part of the dining room set. We got them several years ago from a local furniture store. They aren't total crap, but they sure aren't TOTL, just decent looking, functional chairs which do what they are supposed to do: keep our butts off the floor while we're eating.
Anyway, a couple of the chairs had begun to come apart - the cross members on the legs, that is. I figured some good old carpenter's glue should do the trick. Yeah, it did... for about a week. Next was an attempt to get these stupid things together with 2-part epoxy. Sooo... scraping and filing all the old carpenter's glue off the parts... then a gob of epoxy. That held for about a month, then pop goes the weasel. Damn leg support members hanging free again. Yet again, I grab the file and scrape off the old epoxy. This time, I try the kneadable epoxy putty - which was a PITA because it's pretty thick and the spaces between the leg support and the hole it's supposed to fit in are really small. I don't have a clamp, so I had to stack my son's weights on the leg to force the support into the hole. That had me pretty much convinced I'd finally licked the problem. All three of the chairs held together for about 2 months, then I'll be DAMNED if they didn't all pull apart again! I noticed it when we were sitting at the table during Thanksgiving dinner. All thru the meal, I felt like I was on a rowboat.
Out of desperation, the next day I grabbed a bottle of Gorilla Glue from WalMart. I did the chipping and scraping job yet again! then goobed a spot of GG in the holes and fitted the !^%#$#$ leg supports in. Again, the weights go on the chair legs for clamping. This was Friday. Well, so far, the joints seem more solid than they did even with the epoxy putty. I think I've fixed these chairs for the last time.
I also used GG to seat a screw that holds a hinge on the wall in my daughter's room which had stripped out the hole (this is a very old house). That's as solid now as it was the day the house was built.
I'm keeping a very close eye on those chairs. We'll see if GG really lives up to it's name, but so far I'm impressed.
Anyway, a couple of the chairs had begun to come apart - the cross members on the legs, that is. I figured some good old carpenter's glue should do the trick. Yeah, it did... for about a week. Next was an attempt to get these stupid things together with 2-part epoxy. Sooo... scraping and filing all the old carpenter's glue off the parts... then a gob of epoxy. That held for about a month, then pop goes the weasel. Damn leg support members hanging free again. Yet again, I grab the file and scrape off the old epoxy. This time, I try the kneadable epoxy putty - which was a PITA because it's pretty thick and the spaces between the leg support and the hole it's supposed to fit in are really small. I don't have a clamp, so I had to stack my son's weights on the leg to force the support into the hole. That had me pretty much convinced I'd finally licked the problem. All three of the chairs held together for about 2 months, then I'll be DAMNED if they didn't all pull apart again! I noticed it when we were sitting at the table during Thanksgiving dinner. All thru the meal, I felt like I was on a rowboat.
Out of desperation, the next day I grabbed a bottle of Gorilla Glue from WalMart. I did the chipping and scraping job yet again! then goobed a spot of GG in the holes and fitted the !^%#$#$ leg supports in. Again, the weights go on the chair legs for clamping. This was Friday. Well, so far, the joints seem more solid than they did even with the epoxy putty. I think I've fixed these chairs for the last time.
I also used GG to seat a screw that holds a hinge on the wall in my daughter's room which had stripped out the hole (this is a very old house). That's as solid now as it was the day the house was built.
I'm keeping a very close eye on those chairs. We'll see if GG really lives up to it's name, but so far I'm impressed.
