Advice Needed on Repairing Windsor Chair

[jds]

A friend of mine has asked me to repair a Nichols & Stone armless Windsor dining room chair that is one of a set of eight. The back has two outside support spindles with a mortised and tenoned top curved rail. One of the support spindles broke completely off in the hole in the seat. The spindle appears to have been turned on three different centers making it far too complicated for me to reproduce with my limited lathe skills. Any suggestions on how to make a repair of this spindle that will hold together? I was thinking of drilling a hole through the spindle from the bottom and inserting a long wood screw to hold the pieces together and gluing the pieces together. What type of glue would give the best strength for this type of end grain joinery? Is this type of repair worth doing? Also due to the offset (lean) of the back figuring out how to clamp this assembly up is beyond my imagination -- any thoughts?

Your help and thoughts would be appreciated.

Dave

[bridger]

pictures would help....

[Clif]

First of all, I am a newbie and no absolutley squat about woodworking

That being said. If you are going to repair something for a friend, just be careful. Some friends are very appreciative of this ( I do computer work a lot for friends ) but sometimes, if it is beyond your skill level, or beyond repair, its best to turn them to someone who does this for a living all the time. I am not sure if that makes sense, and apologize if I offended anyone, but to me, it is better to save a friend than to either wreck the furniture, or not do it to their satisfaction and ruin the friendship, especially if this is an older piece of furniture or family heirloom

Just my two cents, now going back to my chair where I watch in wonder at all the great things I see made here and can hopefully learn about it :)

[jds]

Took a couple of pictures to help visualize the problem and published them here:

outside spindle on the back is broken right above the seat. Hope this helps.

Dave

[nospambob]

[Clif]

Yeah but what happens when Will tries to fix wifeys dead mothers chair and cant? and ends up ruining it?

[patriarch]

"jds" wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Well, that clears it up a little bit. But th I've got some chairs, a little bit like that design. On mine, the seats tend to split. A couple of McFeeley's draw the reglued split back together. I haven't needed to repair one twice in about 15 years.

Your friend's chair has a different problem. I don't really like the idea of driving a screw into end grain, particularly where the part is rather slender. If you think you can drill an accurate hole, I'd think of using a piece of dowel, like a loose tenon in concept, to try to get some long grain glue surface, as well as some strength.

Good luck, Dave. It is good to see that you have a well-equipped shop in which to work. My wife showing off my shop and my work gets me more 'opportunities' than I really want. Is your situation similar?

Patriarch