How To Fix A Cracked Chair Leg

Repairing a broken chair leg

My friend Rick has a set of dainty maple dining room chairs. The leg bankrupt off one of these in the process of moving, so he asked me to have a await.

The chairs originally cost around $400 each. Then information technology'southward definitely worth fixing.

The reason the chair leg bankrupt was that the grain was a flake crooked. The line on the picture show at left shows the direction of the original boards, as can be seen by a faint glue line merely in a higher place the line on the picture. With the curly grain on this piece, the grain direction deviated quite a bit from the lath direction, and with the leg at an bending from the board direction, the grain was at quite an angle compared to the leg.

Thanks to the curly grain in this piece, lining upward and gluing the pieces was easy. And with the glue as strong every bit the wood, simply gluing it on makes it good as new. But with the grain kleptomaniacal as it is, skillful equally new really isn't very skilful.

So I cut some channels into the legs to inlay some forest with the grain parallel to the leg. I used a slot cutting bit on a palm-sized router. A router with a bigger base would have been amend for some of these cuts, only the base of operations would have prevented me from getting close enough in a few spots.

I hate using a router similar that. Sawdust thrown straight at me. Ugh!

I then measured the width of the slot and cut some hard maple of just the right width. I'k using a piece of recycled, and stained maple, that's why it looks so red.

With the inlay having to follow a curve, I commencement by marker the curve off the leg onto my workpiece, then cut to the line on the bandsaw.

I and then measured the depth of the groove, added half a millimeter, and scored a line at the correct distance parallel to the curve, and then cut to the line. This gives me the within curve. For the ends, I used a 1 i/4" (xxx mm) washer (same diameter as my router bit) to mark a radius, which I and then as well cutting on the bandsaw.

gluing the inlay, using an excessive amount of glue, just to make sure I had all the gaps filled.

After letting the glue dry for a few hours, I clamped the chair in a vise and started chiseling the inlays level with the chair leg.

I clamped the chair'south leg in my vise. Hmm, if I clench a leg in a vise, does that go far a leg vise? I tin can yet say that a swiveling metal vise like this one is much handier for this application than a traditional workbench leg vise would be!

With careful work, it's possible to flush trim the woods with a chisel without damaging the surrounding finish — except the spot (near my ring finger) where I slipped with the router and gouged the wood.

Having some acrylic artist paints sure comes handy for repairs like this, having the paint in convenient tubes and being able to lucifer the colour.

Finished repair. You tin can definitely tell there was a repair done to this leg, but information technology doesn't catch your centre unless you look for information technology.

Piece of furniture repair isn't that fun or artistic, but it's one of the virtually effective things, in terms of saving coin, that y'all tin can do in a small domicile workshop.