During a move I broke one of the wooden legs of a (circa 1940) wooden desk right where the round turned leg was attached to the square top that forms the corners of the case. Of course it's not a clean break, though it's not that jagged either, and I can fit the two halves together by hand quite closely.
I'm intending to repair the break by drilling for and inserting a metal "dowel" of some sort as a strength member between the two pieces. I have an older 3/8" drill mounted in a portable drillpress which I'm pretty sure can be used to drill the hole into the case part along the axis of the leg quite accurately. But I have no lathe and I don't see a good way to align the hole in the tapered rounded leg axially. I have 1/2" (tabletop) drillpress on which I could tilt the table. I haven't had the table tilted in the last
30 years so I don't know if it will rotate further than the marked 45 degrees but I see no stops that would prevent it from going (close to) vertical. Since this is a tabletop drillpress, there's not enough room to put the leg between the chuck and the base, though (it looks like) I can swing both the head and the table out over the edge of the stand to get space down to the floor.I'd like comments, suggestions -- and even constructive flames -- concerning the following scheme:
- Swing the head and table around so that they're no longer over the base but rather clear of it. Measure the taper angle of the leg and set the table to 90 degrees - taper angle so that the axis of the leg would be vertical when clamped into a v-block against the table. I think that this should give me the ability to drill exactly parallel to the axis of the leg.
- I don't know how to get the exact center of the broken end of the leg and there's no part that's even close to the exact diameter of any (Fostner) drill bit I have to use to create a jig, though I guess I could try to (patiently) use an adjustable circle cutter and chisel out the center to get a center finder. Any comments or suggestions?
- I think I can locate the "exact" center of the square end of the broken leg on the case by "drawing" the two diagonals.
My biggest fear is getting the holes in the leg parts off-center relative to one another.
Now -- here's another thought on which I'd like comments. Epoxy glue is significantly stronger than wood. If I can get even a sloppy hole in the two parts into which I can insert a "spline", I should be able to use the jagged break to align the leg with respect to the case and a level together with a custom-cut tapered wedge the same angle as the leg taper clamped to the leg with a level to get the leg vertical. When the glue sets, the whole joint will be stronger than the original wood was. _Please comment_.
Thanks in advance.
Norm