Hi y'all, first time posting here. And I am glad to BE here.
I was asked to repair and restore an ole child's rocking chair. The seat is cracked it a number of places and was repaired (badly I might say). The splits have glue coming from them and I am afraid the wood will split if I try to pry them open.
Can anyone guide me as to how or what to use to soften this old glue so that I might remove it and repair with minimal damage?
Again very happy to be a part of this group.
Mike
Any chance you could post a picture to the "alt.binaries.pictures.woodworking" newsgroup? If we can see it, we might be able to offer better advice.
Heat the glued areas with a hair drier. It may take 5 to 10 minutes, maybe more, to soften the glue. If you have a heat gun and you are very careful not to burn the wood, use the heat gun, but be very careful. I mentioned the hair drier first, to heat it slowly, because many times folks aren't aware of what a heat gun will do to wood.
Heat the glued areas with a hair drier. It may take 5 to 10 minutes, maybe more, to soften the glue. If you have a heat gun and you are very careful not to burn the wood, use the heat gun, but be very careful. I mentioned the hair drier first, to heat it slowly, because many times folks aren't aware of what a heat gun will do to wood.
Heat the glued areas with a hair drier. It may take 5 to 10 minutes, maybe more, to soften the glue. If you have a heat gun and you are very careful not to burn the wood, use the heat gun, but be very careful. I mentioned the hair drier first, to heat it slowly, because many times folks aren't aware of what a heat gun will do to wood.
Heat the glued areas with a hair drier. It may take 5 to 10 minutes, maybe more, to soften the glue. If you have a heat gun and you are very careful not to burn the wood, use the heat gun, but be very careful. I mentioned the hair drier first, to heat it slowly, because many times folks aren't aware of what a heat gun will do to wood.
Heat the glued area with a hair drier. It will take 5 - 10 minutes, maybe. If you are very careful, you can use a heat gun, but be careful not to burn your wood.
Try heating the glued areas with a hair drier. It may take 5-10 minutes. If you are very careful, not to burn the wood, you can use a heat gun.
Try heating the glued areas with a hair drier. It may take 5-10 minutes. If you are very careful, not to burn the wood, you can use a heat gun.
Splits in composite glued up boards are very common. The joints are glued before the wood is stabilized [green or wet], and as the wood dries it shrinks and applies powerful force on the joint, pulling it apart. You can assume that the wood is now a lot more stable and a proper repair can be made. I like to use a thin kerf saw to saw the offending joint out and re-joint it before gluing. This results in the loss of a little width [the saw kerf], but is acceptable for many repairs. If the wood loss is critical you can glue in a thin compensating strip, usually called a 'Dutchman', to restore the original width. Properly done and refinished, the repair will be practically invisible. Make sure the wood is sealed well with finish to prevent further warping. The practice of leaving chair bottoms unsealed leads to a lot of cracked glue joints. Good luck! Bugs
What's the big deal with splits? It's rarely any harder to fix a total split than a partial split, and access for cleaning it up and fixing it is much better.
I'm assuming that this isn't an antique that needs conservation, you simply need to fix it well and leave a neat job behind, not preserve originality. I'd look at either biscuit jointing it, or even cutting a couple of crosswise sliding dovetails into the underneath of the seat and installing battens.
White vinegar will soften some glue but don't use any metal scrapers or you'll get black stain on the wood.
Gordon
Use a heat gun (but be careful not to scorch the wood). The odds are good the glue will soften enough for you to deal with it.
djb
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