Chairs with turned legs leave marks on wood floor

[whit3rd]

I kind of like the old-style spindle-back Windsor chairs, but only some of them come with bevel-cut (thus planar floor-parallel) feet; others have a hard steel button in the middle, or just hold the turned leg end angled against the floor.

Without drilling into the center of the feet (they're tapered, it's hard to jig up for a coaxial bore) how can I attach feet that spread the pressure so my floor doesn't show tracks?

Most gliders either take a center-spike connection (nail into endgrain: not nice) and have small tilt freedom, so won't suffice.

[Sonny]

Cut the feet parallel to the floor by eyeballing the cut.... doesn't have to be a perfect cut. Apply stickum felt pads, available at Walmart, to the feet.

Be careful what you buy at Walmart. Get the pads, not the sliders. Some of those pad packages are labeled as (name brand-like) sliders.

As for as those nailed metal buttons, when reupholstering, I always recommend removing them and installing the pads or sliders, depending on the type (wood, carpet, tile) flooring.

Sonny

[hubops]

• 1. I'd put the chair on a good flat work table and pencil-mark the line to take off the bare minimum. Then power-sand or rasp close to the line - test for wobble - adjust - sand smooth. Stick on some quality furniture pads :

For an area subject to frequent wet-mopping - perhaps seal the end grain with some penetrating/thinned finish John T.

[Leon]

Some glides feet have a cup on top that the leg fits down into. It adds a decorative touch at the feet.

[Spalted Walt]

+1

[DJ Delorie]

I had a set of eight such chairs that all needed tweaking, so I built a jig with some scrap wood that let me use a router to level the feet. It was just a square of ply with some holes cut at the feet, and two pieces of pine to support it just above the feet (they rested on the cross-braces, chair feet-side-up). The router had a straight bit with a template follower (just to avoid cutting into the plywood by surprise).

For each chair I flipped it onto the bench, clamped on the jig, and routed the four feet.

[Joe Gwinn]

Try Forever Furniture Glides. Here is a source:

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