The story goes something like this:
Me: Mom, this rickety old chair is crap, throw it on the burn pile
Mom: NO!!! I got that chair is '72 and it is part of a set of four
Me: oh, I guess I'll fix it.
Yea, the story went something like that.
Step 1: Gather Some Tools
- two types of wood glue (I use the one that was stronger)
- a box of wood toothpicks (in case I need some fill)
- my sweet Swiss Army knife
- some crappy old twine (the stuff kept breaking so I used some nylon rope instead)
Step 2: TAKE IT APART!
Make a map of where the screw from the rickety old chair are from and place the screws on the map.
There are 10 crappy flat head screws in the rickety old chair, but I only needed to remove four of the crappy flat head screws. Blech! flat head screws
Step 4: Put Some Glue On It
After remove a few of the screws, the rickety old chair sort of fell apart and there were legs and supports all over the place.
A bit of glue here, and a bit of glue there, and the rickety old chair was shaped like a chair again... but how was I going to hold all of the components firmly together?
Step 5: The Vice
I don't recall from whom I learned this, or when I first used this, but when dealing with odd shaped things needing to be held together in a vice, my favorite 'vice' to use is the tourniquet vice.
Some nylon rope was loosely woven through the legs and tied off. Then a small stick was inserted into a loop in the loose rope. Spinning the stick around pulled the rope tight against the legs of the rickety old chair.
Step 6: Clean Up the Excess Glue
When the rope vice was nice and snug, excess glue was squeezed out of the holes in the chair legs where the supports are inserted.
A wet rag did a great job of cleaning up the excess glue. The chair was then set aside to let the glue dry.
Finished
um.... that's not a step, that is a chair. bwahaha! Oh man, I crack me up.
The screws were replaced and tightened, and now the rickety old chair is a far less rickety old chair that is not destined for the burn pile. sweet!