From the article, "I don’t know how many chairs I’ve reglued during the last three decades, but it must be in the thousands."

I'm gonna read that!

Very helpful, Thanks a bunch!

Let's see...

I can sand (without causing too much damage)...
I can scrape (with some risk of making things less flat than they were when I started)...
I can take stuff apart (in ways that give me the opportunity to solve NEW problems)...
I can paint (without too many unintended consequences)...

Once I even started to paint a chair (still unfinished, 15 years later)...



But...
Although I am developing a keen fascination for hide glue...
I still don't know a single thing about gluing furniture together.
Except for what I just read in this thread.

And...
Since the chair you see here has need gluing for some time
(see that joint in the upper left? It pulls right apart)...
This has all been VERY helpful.

Thanks!

That chair is cute!

Nice!

Here's a close-up of where it's coming apart and needs gluing. There are a few other loose joints, but this one is by far the worst:



I'm planning to strip the chair and repaint it, so I figured I'd reglue everything then. Unfortunately that project's way back in the queue behind a lot of other projects... and every time the chair gets moved (constantly), this one joint gets looser... with bad consequences for the rest of the chair. I know I should just go ahead and glue it to keep it from getting worse - but I want to do it right and I haven't wanted to take the time to figure it out until I get some other things off my plate.

I'll be getting back to my desk in the next couple of weeks, and the next thing on THAT agenda is reattaching some pieces of veneer. I'm using hide glue for that, so maybe I could also use it for a temporary fix on this one joint on the chair while I'm at it.

Thoughts?

I have glued up many chairs both on my own and at Ne. Furniture Mart for 7 yrs. The Flexner article is excellent. I was taught to disassemble as much as possible, clean off old adhesive and if necessary rebuild the joint to get a proper fit. Definitely a lot of labor. Frequently you will do more damage disassembling the chair, a lot of split solid wood seats, which were easy to reglue along the split lines. Ditto to the spiral groove dowels. Sharp chisels a necessity to removing old adhesive. In a pinch you can wrap a glue soaked piece of cotton around a dowel to get a tighter fit but that is kinda iffy and a pain in the neck to clean with a razor. Anyway a piece of furniture doesn't get to be an antique if it doesn't get repaired.
Matt

P.S. I said in a pinch...lol

Duct tape Laurie Duct Tape!

Then when you see how ugly it looks with the DT, you'll fix it properly!

Jay

I agree, the article seems to cover every question I can think of. I'm sure after the first chair I will have "learned" a lot more about the whole process.

A loop of baling wire from corner to corner, tightened by twisting a stick in the middle works great, too.

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