I have been asked to re-glue a dowel pin (~3/4" diameter) on an old (~100 year) oak chair (part of a dining room table set). The dowel pin extends out of the lower support arm which connects a back leg to a front leg (both on the same side).
When I say "less than snug", I mean that the dowel comes in and out of the hole with no resistance. It doesn't really "wiggle" in the hole, but it is certainly not a snug fit.
I was originally considering a regular wood glue, but given the lack of a snug fit, I an reconsidering that.
Rather than suggesting a particular adhesive, I'd recommend an alternative:
Glue a layer of Kraft (shopping bag) paper around the dowel. First saturate the paper with glue, wrap it around the dowel and let it dry. If it fits w ell, glue the dowel into the hole. If it's too large, lightly sand the pin until it fits, and then glue it. Use the same glue. Titebond III would be a good choice.
I'd first as the other respondent says, work to fixup the fit; but before specific repair I'd ask if these have any value as "real" antiques or are they "simply furniture"?
If the former it's important as to potential value to not do anything irreversible.
Can you tell what might have been the glue type used from remnants?
Also is the leg into which the dowel fits also oak and what shape is the wood in--that is, is it clean-enough that it will take glue or is there old glue or previous "repair" damage as well?
First carefully remove ALL the old glue from both the dowel and the hole. then see if you can wiggle the dowel. If you can, glue thin veneer around it, and if necessary sand for a snug fit, then use wood glue (titebond, etc) to secure it in the hole. If it still doesn't wiggle, try wrapping the dowel with paper (from your printer) until it is snug. Then glue paper to dowel then glue dowel into hole
If you saturate the paper, that means you end up with dried glue on the outer surface of the dowel. I've never been able to glue cured glued to anything. The dowel may stay in the hole better than it does, now, but I doubt it will be glued in there.
I think that is a valid technique only if the glue *doesn't* saturate the paper in the first step of the process.
It was a fairly common practice back in the day to expand a peg or dowel by inserting a nail or wedge into the end of the peg/dowel. Think of an older hammer. Google "dowel wedge" and look at the images.
Could you use one of the expanding glues like Gorilla glue?
I like Gorilla Glue but do not use it as most of my gluing is in biscuits in picture frames. Maybe an irrational fear but I am concern that it would spit the when it expanded in the slot.
Would your dowel be a candidate for something like Gorilla Glue?
I'd be inclined to use a blind wedge... i.e., cut a slit in the end of the tenon, insert a thin wedge of a length appropriate to fully seat when the tenon is driven into the mortise... See the Blind Mortise section of
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for a visual of how this would work. Note that it is important to orient the slit/wedge so as to not split the mortise, e.g., orient across the grain of the mortise not with it. Remove all the old glue possible from the tenon and mortise before starting so you can judge how much of a wedge is needed and yield a good glue joint... Keep in mind that it would not take much of a wedge to tighten up the tenon... standard wood glue would suffice. Note too that this is a one shot deal so maybe practice on some scrap first!
The blind wedge with yellow glue or epoxy would work well; trouble is, it can be tricky to get the slot in the dowel and the wedge "just right" so that the dowel can be inserted fully but expanded by the wedge. As someone said, you want the slot cross grain. It also helps to drill a small (1/8") hole through the dowel at the end of the kerf, keeps the dowel from splitting. Life is easier if you can taper the perimeter of the hole; wide at the bottom, tapering up as far as the slit in the dowel is long. Might be able to do that with a dovetail bit.
If that is too much trouble, use epoxy. As the fit is now, plain epoxy would work well. If, after cleaning both dowel and hole, the dowel is "wiggle loose", thicken the epoxy with saw dust, micro baloons, or Cabosil.
Best to use epoxy in the hole rather on the dowel, minimizes squeeze out. Any that does squeeze out can be wiped off, then cleaned more thoroughly with a cloth dampened with vinegar. Note that it takes regular epoxy several hours to harden, several days to fully cure.
Chances are that the dowel still has old glue on it and or the hole does. Typically that needs to be removed for new "regular" wood glue to stick. If there is not glue at all the new regular wood glue will cause some swelling and you may be just fine with using that.
To insure a tight fit regardless I would advise using Epoxy but keep in mind that will pretty much be a permanent bond, one that you will have great difficulty in removing should it need to come apart in the future.
Paper included in joinery does not work as a fix. Old wood turners used to use the trick of gluing a sheet of paper between a finished piece and a tu rning plate and then split the piece cleanly off after turning on the paper line. I immediately thought of that when paper filler was suggested.
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I would go with the good advice you have so far, and that is clean both hol e and dowel as well as possible, then use a thick gel type glue like epoxy or even PL400 for a fix. If it isn't a priceless piece, then pop an 18 ga brad in the end of dowel from the outside of the hole (chair leg?) and it w ill never break again.
woodchucker wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@ptd.net:
First thing is, as someone else said, does this furniture have any value as an antique? If so, you are probably going to want to glue it in the same fashion as originally, which likely means using hide glue and some mechanical means to tighten the fit of the dowel in the hole (wrap with veneer, fox-wedge, or whatever).
Otherwise, if there's a gap, epoxy is your best bet. Note that epoxy is different than "regular wood glue", it does not bond well to a tight fit, you actually need a little bit of a gap.
OTOH, if you have a big enough gap that the epoxy will run out, you can use sawdust or sanding dust (wood flour) (*) to make a paste with the epoxy. This is just as strong as plain epoxy, and will stay where you put it.
John
(* wonder what happened to Lew Hodgett? He'd always take exception to the idea of thickening epoxy with sawdust)
I recently had a number of pieces appraised at my house, pieces that came from SWMBO's grandmother.
My sister recently had a number of pieces appraised at her house, pieces that came from our grandparents and great-grandparents.
My brother stopped by an antiques dealer/consignment shop recently to get some general information about selling older furniture/antiques.
3 different people talking to 3 different appraisers in 3 different states, all getting basically the same answer:
Determining what a piece is "worth" is one thing. Finding a buyer at that price is getting more and more difficult these days. The older folks who once cherished finely built furniture, hand crafted china, etc. are dying off or have all that they need. The younger generations don't care about the old stuff because nobody furnishes their houses that way anymore.
The guy that came to my house basically told us that we had some really nice pieces (both furniture and china) but not to expect to get anywhere near the prices he quoted if we tried to sell it. He said to use his numbers for insurance purposes, but don't expect even half that if we tried to sell it.
When I mentioned the prices for pieces of china at sites like replacements.com, he said that those prices are their retail prices, not what they would buy the pieces from us for.
It's a shame that a lot of really nice isn't worth much anymore.
The original glue was probably hide glue; I'd use that. Clean the hole, then make a new dowel to fit, and reassemble. If the cleanout isn't perfect, it doesn't matter; hide glue sticks to old glue.
I remember when Gorilla Glue debuted, and it was huge. I was told by their rep I would never need another general adhesive, and I could get rid of my PL400, my carpenter's glue, and even some of my masonry glue that I use. M an was I excited.
Then reports came back from guys I trust that the glue simply didn't hold. Sometimes not at all. Guys in the woodturning club told me about failures . The reps came back down and told us we needed to "wet" the surfaces with water before applying the glue.
I never used it because I can't warrant a repair that is going to fall apar t, and I gave away all but one of my sample bottles to others. They didn't get satisfactory bonding, either.
My tool supplier and hardware guy at the time described it best: "It doesn' t hold when it is supposed to, and does when you want it to."
They reduced their shelf space to one row of no more than six small bottles for the weekend warriors, and put the rest of the stuff we all used back o ut for sale.
FWIW, when I have extensive wood repair of badly damaged parts and pieces, I almost always use a good one hour epoxy that I buy at a local hobby store . At the hobby store, it is inexpensive and haven't had a failure yet. If you have a day or two to let it set while you do other things, you can sand it smooth and do some light shaping as well.
That last is good advice for most polyurethanes. The one-part polyurethanes are generally moisture-cure and if the surfaces are too dry it won't cure, at least not quickly. You don't have to soak the surface, but dampen it a little.
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