`While furniture is far from indestructible, never call a piece a lost cause.”
That advice comes from Annie Steinwedell, a manager at Salvage One, a five-story warehouse of old house parts on Chicago’s Near South Side.
Perfectly good pieces of furniture may be discarded because of what’s perceived to be irreparable damage: a broken leg, a weak joint or a gouge in the finish.
“It’s amazing what you can do to bring a piece of furniture back to life,” says Steinwedell.
And such repairs usually don’t require expensive power tools, but rather a “little bit of glue and a lot of patience,” she adds.
The key to mending furniture is learning the tricks of the trade-the methods the professionals use to repair breaks and imperfections.
Loose joints
For example, people often throw out tables or chairs once they become wobbly, when all they require is a few cents worth of carpenters’ glue and a lot of elbow grease.
The best way to repair loose joints is not by adding screws or metal braces, says Stan Bernacki, a furniture restorer with the firm Bernacki and Los in Chicago’s Bucktown neighborhood. “Braces and screws often cause the wood to split,” says Bernacki. Instead, stick with glue.
1. Once you’ve determined the weak spot, start by disassembling the loose joint. “The important thing is to take the joint apart and clean it of the old glue before you put it back together,” says Bernacki.
To disassemble the furniture, use a rubber mallet and a wood block to gently bang a joint apart. If it’s stubborn, try dissolving the glue by injecting a mix of distilled white vinegar and hot water into the joint. Still-stubborn joints may require thinner or acetone (allow the wood to dry for several hours if you use either mixture).
2. Once the wood is apart, remove any remaining glue with a razor blade and sandpaper. Mortise or dowel holes can be cleaned out by wrapping sandpaper around a pencil and inserting it into the hole.
3. If the tenon-the extension of wood that goes into a mortise or opening-seems worn or loose, apply a thin shim to the unfinished side, using glue to hold it in place. Then, apply glue to both the tenon and the opening and reconnect the two pieces, using a mallet and piece of wood to gently drive the tenon as far into the opening as possible.
You can also cut a thin slot down into the end of the tenon (drill a small hole at the bottom of the slot to prevent splitting), and insert a thin wedge into the slot so that it protrudes just beyond the lip of the tenon. (See accompanying illustration.) When driven back into the mortise, the wedge will force the tenon to expand slightly, providing a tighter fit.
Wrapping thread around the tenon may also give it a better fit into the mortise.
4. After reinserting the tenon into the opening, it’s important to keep the joint as tight as possible.
The best way of holding glued pieces together is by using clamps, says Bernacki.
Clamps come in a wide range of sizes and shapes. The most flexible and inexpensive type are clamp ends that simply use a length of common pipe to hold things together.
To prevent any harm to the furniture’s finish, place a piece of scrap wood under the clamp before attaching it to the furniture.
Rope is another material that can be used to hold together joints, especially at corners. Pass the rope over the joint several times. Again, use a small piece of scrap wood to prevent the rope from harming the finish of the furniture.
Steinwedell says duct tape is yet another way of holding joints together. “Hold the piece together until the glue is tacky,” she says. “Then take a thin rag, wrap it around the joint, then wrap the duct tape around that. When the joint dries, just cut right through the rag to remove the duct tape.”
On smaller pieces of furniture, rubber bands are also an option.
5. Whatever method you choose, allow the glue to dry for at least 24 hours before removing the supports.
Another method of shoring up loose joints is by adding a support block. Cut the block out of wood to fit the joint as closely as possible and then attach it with either screws or glue. (See accompanying illustration.) Of course, the block will be visible, so you may have to stain or paint it to match the rest of the furniture. You can also use a metal brace if you can get by with it aesthetically.
Fixing breaks
Another common furniture repair is a break, especially with table and chair legs.
Repairing a break properly will return the structural integrity to the piece. “But not setting a furniture break properly is like not setting a broken human leg properly,” says Bernacki. “Eventually, it will weaken and not function right.”
1. If the break is in sight, as with a chair or table leg, your best bet is to use a dowel-a small wooden pin-to make a strong repair.
Start by pounding a brad-a tapered nail with a small head-into the center of one side of the break. Clip the nail head so it protrudes slightly from the wood. Then, fit the two broken pieces together carefully so that the brad marks an entry spot on the second piece.
2. Pull the two pieces apart and remove the brad with pliers. Using the brad marks as guides, drill holes to accommodate a dowel (if the piece is wide, use a couple of dowels).
3. Test fit the dowel before gluing. Then coat the dowel liberally with glue and join the two pieces together.
4. Again, clamping or roping the repaired break is an important step. Use the steps above to rejoin the break. Or wind rope or cord around the break, and use additional rope to create a tourniquet around the supporting legs or arms. (See accompanying illustration.)
5. If the broken part is hidden from eyesight, you can strengthen it simply by sistering or splinting the break.
Glue the broken sections together and clamp them. After they dry, chisel out a 1/4-inch recess on opposite sides of the break and fill the recesses with 1/4-inch splints. (See accompanying illustration.)
You can also add support to the reglued break by attaching a sister joint, a second piece of wood that can be attached via glue or screws.
Replacement pieces
If a chair arm or leg is destroyed (let’s say your dog chewed it to smithereens), that’s still no reason to dispose of the whole piece of furniture.
“New furniture pieces can be made to replace the old pieces,” says Steinwedell. “A real wood replacement part can be expensive. But that’s still better than paying for a new chair.”
Millwork shops, where specialty carpenters will create wood pieces, are a good source of replacement parts.
Your best bet is to take the entire piece to the millwork shop so that accurate measurements can be made.
Because the replacement piece will be bare wood, you will need to stain it to match it to the existing furniture. This will require a little experimentation to reach the right shade of stain, so it’s a good idea to ask the millwork shop for a few scraps of the same wood that you can use as a testing board.
Veneer repair
Problems with veneer-a thin layer of decorative wood glued over a piece of solid, less valuable wood-are also common with wood furniture.
The glue holding veneer down can soften and loosen due to fluctuating temperatures and humidity. Like solid wood, veneer can also be gouged or chipped.
Loosened veneer can be repaired in several steps:
1. First, try warming the veneer and the glue by covering it with a damp cloth and heating it with a clothesiron on low heat. Be careful not to scorch the wood and only apply the iron for a few seconds at a time.
Once the veneer is warmed and seems pliable, cover it with a piece of wax paper and weigh it down with several heavy books. Let it dry for a day.
2. If the veneer still doesn’t stay in place, you’ll need to reglue it. Again make the veneer pliable as described above. Lift the veneer carefully and try to remove as much of the old glue as possible.
Then liberally coat the back of the veneer with carpenters’ glue. Gently push the veneer back into place.
3. The best way to keep the veneer in place is with a couple of clamps and a piece of scrap wood. Wipe away any excess glue, cover the repaired area with a sheet of wax paper and then place the scrap wood on top of the wax paper.
Tighten the clamps so that the scrap wood pushes the veneer back down in place. Don’t overtighten or you could cause indentations in the wood.
4. Veneer can also blister. Slit the blister along the wood grain with a razor knife and inject a dab of glue beneath the wood. Cover the blister with wax paper and weigh it down with several heavy books.
5. Damaged veneer can be patched by buying a new piece of veneer (available at woodworking houses and lumber yards) that closely matches the grain of the existing veneer.
To patch the veneer, first tape a piece of cardboard over the damaged area. Use a razor blade knife and a straight edge ruler to cut out the damaged area, through the cardboard, in a rectangular, parallelogram, diamond or trapezoid shape. (See accompanying illustration.) Cut with the grain and try to avoid cutting across the grain.
Use the cardboard as a template by taping it to the new piece of veneer. Try to match the grain as closely as possible, again using the razor blade knife and a straight edge ruler to make your cut. (See accompanying illustration.)
Remove any old glue from the original veneer spot. Take the veneer patch, coat it liberally with glue and press it firmly in place. Wipe away any leftover glue and use the clamp method above to make sure it adheres solidly.
