Chair Repair

A fairly basic repair of a broken rung on an oak chair. The picture on the left shows the repaired chair rung.

Here is a picture of the chair before repair. As you can see, the chair rung was not so much broken as "chewed through."

Here are the suspects in the crime. One or both of these culprits did the deed, but it does not appear to be weighing heavily on their consciences.

The repair was done by reaming out the dowel end of the nearly chewed away end. A piece of oak was cut and a dowel end was more or less carved into one end; this was made necessary by the fact that the dowel enters the chair leg at a compound angle, so it was not possible to simple drill and fit a regular dowel.

Cutouts were made on both the existing remaining piece of rung, and the replacement piece. A piece of oak was cut to fit the cutout, and glued into place as a splice. The splice was further reinforced by inserting piece of dowel sideways into the spliced section (in blind holes drilled from the inside, so the dowel ends do not show on the outside of the chair.

The rung was finished by light sanding, staining, and a coat of clear satin urethane varnish.