We have this banister post at the foot of our stairs that has an ornamental top that is just a ball attached to a square piece of wood that was nailed to the post. When we had couches delivered recently the guys hit into the top of the post and loosened the ornamental top piece. After a while it c ame completely off but I was able to line up the nails and push it back int o place. It is very loose though.
I was thinking of trying to put some glue in between where it came apart an d then try to weight the top of the ornamental piece so the glue will hold and make a tight joint.
What type of glue should I use for a job like this?
If it doesn't hold I guess I would have to take it apart and drive in new n ails and make it more secure.
I think a simple and secure repair would be to replace nails with dowels (small diameter)....just drill holes where a couple of nails were in each piece, apply some wood glue to each and stick 'em together. If you need to hold the ball down, a bag of sand or gravel would work nicely.
You'll have to move furniture, again. Please consider some thing removable, so you can move the sofa back out. Might be some way to use screws and nuts, in some form. So you can take the top off, and put it back.
Using screws sounds like a good idea but I think it would be tricky to dril l holes and get it lined up properly. I'm also not the most experienced pe rson working with wood although I can handle a drill and did o.k. in woodsh op in middle school.
Here is a photo of the banister that I uploaded:
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I can't see the nail heads and I'm not sure exactly where they were nailed from. The ends of the nails were sticking out the bottom of this so I was just able to line it up with the existing holes and push it back down. I w as kind of hoping that gluing it might do the trick.
Do you think I can get screws to work based on the photo above?
ill holes and get it lined up properly. I'm also not the most experienced person working with wood although I can handle a drill and did o.k. in wood shop in middle school.
d from. The ends of the nails were sticking out the bottom of this so I wa s just able to line it up with the existing holes and push it back down. I was kind of hoping that gluing it might do the trick.
I don't see why not, assuming you don't mind filling the holes, sanding and painting afterwards. Personally, I'd just get some gorilla glue and glue it back on. Glue is strong, provided there is enough surface area to bond across and it looks like you have that.
Trader is right , glue it and walk away . I'm betting if you push those nails out from the bottom you'll find that piece was nailed from the top , holes filled and then painted . If you feel you must renail or screw it back down , do it the same way . Be sure whatever you do that you clean the mating surfaces well to get a good glue bond .
I bought a set of varying length threaded 'bolts' where there's a wood screw one end and 'finer' thread other. The idea is to put the 'bolt' into the round part, centered. Then the large wood screw threads allow you to tighten it down into place onto the bottom wood, yet you can unscrew the whole thing for clearance later. Nothing stickingup.
The ball is attached to a square piece which is supposed to be attached to the square piece below it?
If yes, you can screw or nail through the top square piece into the bottom one. Just countersink so you can fill and paint.
You could also glue the top square piece to the bottom one. If both mating surfaces are bare wood, just use yellow glue; if not, use epoxy. clamp in either case. Gluing would be less work than nails/screws - no holes to fill -but you'd probably still have to wipe some caulk around the join and paint.
I think you can't see where the nails went in because it has been painted so much the heads are covered. You will know where they went in when you back them out.
I would go for strength when you put it back on, because kids love to swing around the corner when there is a knob to grab. Carpenters have a couple of ways of making a strong connection that doesn't show, all of which take special skills and tools.
First is to use dowels and glue, but you need the skills to make them line up. Get some dowel points; these are brass plugs the diameter of the dowels you will be using, with a point on one end. drill some perpendicular holes about an inch deep in the base (the skill is getting them perpendicular). then place the dowel points in the holes (four would be nice). Then put the ball and base in place, resting on the points of the dowel points. Give the ball and base a healthy whack. Remove it and you will find the points have marked the center of where you want to put perpendicular holes up into the bottom of the ball and base. you now have matching holed in the top of the base, and the bottom of the ball and base. Cut short pieces of dowel to go into these holes, apply wood glue, insert the dowels, and place the ball and base in place and find some way to apply pressure while it dries. One warning: mark the top and bottom assemblies before you start since it is unlikely that your holes will match if you accidentally rotate the top.
The second way requires even more tools. Hold the top assembley in place and drill holes so you can insert screws, but make the top three eighths inches of the hole wider than the screw head. When you insert the screws, you will be left with holes in the top that are three eighths of an inch deep. You cut a plug and glue it in the hole. For ordinary work, I like to make this hole dowel sized, so I can just cut the plug from some doweling. A very good finishing carpenter would cut plugs from the same wood as the top assembly, and make sure the grain aligned when he did the insertion, but that is the type of work that is usually done when some clear finish, such as varnish, will be used.
I think so too. I probably have more experience than you and I would be reluctant to get into more driling, even in the same holes.
I've looked at the picture. What looks like brown stuff would be white if the top part was sitting right on the bottom part, right?
I would do one of two things.
First make sure you can get the top part all the way down to the bottom part. Remove any nail that is in the way and any wood splinter that the nail pushed into the way. If you can get the two parts to fit well and some surfaces are close enough together to glue, you wn't need nails at all.
Either I would use some 5-minute epoxee, the kind that comes in one double tube with a double plunger, a syringe I guess. F Squeeze out onto a piece of glossy cardboard. You can use something food comes in, like potato chips, An equal amount of both A and B. Don't ever let any of A touch B or B touch A in the syringe and the stuff you don't use wiill last for years.
Mix the stuff very well with a kitchen match, or a stick you can throw away, and put M&M size amounts at 2, 3, 4 corners of the post, close to the inside if they will still be in contact with the top part. Hold it down until the 5 minutes are up. You won't need clamps or anything.
OR, if you think you might want to remove the top for any reason, use Ambroid cement in the same way, except no mixing required. It won't stand up in a ball for long, it will spread out flat, so you can only use it if the space between the bottom and the top is small. (Wad up some newspaper or tin foil and put it between the post and the top and push the top down and youl can see how much space there is.) If there is a place where Ambroid cement will work, it's good because it sticks to almost anything, dries quickly, but if you need to break it, you can do that and it will break at the glue..
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