I brought home a chair from the furniture bank fix-up room yesterday to work on it at home. Here are some photos of the progress

The before photos from the DPO (Dreaded Prior Owner)

Screws in an attempt to tighten up some joints. Screws will keep the joint from coming apart, but not fix the wobble from the loose joint. And a few missed their target. Three different head types. Nails in joints are even worse, less tight and hard to get out without damage.
And glue drips never cleaned up.

Edited July 30Jul 30 by kmealy

Arms were filthy. I could scrape the gunk with a fingernail. Cleaned up with dish soap and water. Body oils/acids ate away most of the finish. Will touch that up later when the surfaces are dry. 90% of furniture soiling can be cleaned up with detergent and water (AKA polar solvent). Every once in a while you'll need to follow with mineral spirits (non-polar solvent). Screws here, too.

On to labeling the pieces. In my methods, every piece only needs one label. And I number them in clockwise order. There's no reason to label a stretcher left front (LF) and left back (LB). If you put the front to the front, the back is in the back. On the legs I start at the leg furthest from me, label it "1", then go clockwise. On the back posts, left to right. If there could be any confusion about back vs. stretcher pieces, I'll do the back pieces A,B,C... The problem with left vs. right is which way is the piece oriented, and are you labeling from the side facing or the side sitting?

Here you can also see the back pieces that have come out.

Take the joints apart that are loose. Using a soft mallet or Quick-Clamps in reverse will help remove the loose but sticky ones. Then remove residual glue. I use plumbing wire brushes and a mortising chisel on the mortises and a light sanding on the tenons. If there are wedges in thru tenons, you may need to drill or chisel out the wedge and/or saw it once out. Make new wedge pieces.

Fix any pieces that are damaged. Here's a back post where the screw missed center and split the wood. Glued and clamped back together. If possible will try to hide the crack in an inconspicuous orientation.

Also, as you can see from the wear on the legs, some of the stretchers must have been out for a while before DPO added screws.

Edited July 30Jul 30 by kmealy

Glue up the legs and stretchers in an orderly fashion. Keep moving as most glues have a short open & closed time. I'm using PVA because this is a rough chair and probably won't need fixed again before it's trashed. If you are working on a valuable antique or vintage piece (e.g., pre WWII) it likely has hide glue. Hide glue will reactivate itself and can easily be unglued for a future repair. The bottled version also has a bit more working time.

Then set on a known flat surface and level up the legs so it doesn't wobble.

Thanks for the follow along Keith! Great project and great tips too! Screws all over that thang! Please keep us in the know how it's going, thanks for posting this!

Thanks, @kmealy for a timely how too. We have a dining room chair that need some repair. I will use this as my guide.

Here's the wire brushes and more of the back spindles

A handy glue bottle for getting in small mortises. It has different sizes, one for biscuits and another one for flat mortises.

Trade secret: There were some back spindles that did not want to come out. In the past I've used Veritas's Chair Doctor Glue. But when I went to use it on another chair last January, I could not get it. I don't know if they discontinued it or just too cold to ship from Canada. Bob Behneke, the Titebond guru, was here at the ww club meeting and I asked if they made anything similar. He said yes, but they only sold it in 5 gal tubs. I needed about 1-2 ounces. He said they might have some in the lab, so he sent me some. It is Low Viscosity (LV) so you put it around the joint and it wicks in and glues up. I apply with a syringe.

Wedges for the end of arm spindles. Had some thin stock, cut on a band saw and tapered on a disc sander.

Cleaned up the numbers and glue. Then applied a coat of dewaxed shellac to seal in any potential silicone oil contamination (e.g., Pledge). Let it dry while I decided it was just easier to put in some uniform nice screws instead of filling all the screw holes. Then applied the first coat of toner. When it dries, will steel wool it out, maybe add more or use touch up pens and then apply clear coat of lacquer.

Great tips and progress. Unfortunately the newer furniture I have seen is no longer M&T. They use the metal corner blocks with screw and grooves. I suppose there may be some M&T out there but this is what I have seen. It is a shame the short cuts they take in furniture now.

2 minutes ago, Gerald said:

Great tips and progress. Unfortunately the newer furniture I have seen is no longer M&T. They use the metal corner blocks with screw and grooves. I suppose there may be some M&T out there but this is what I have seen. It is a shame the short cuts they take in furniture now.

Yes, I was fixing a drawer for a nightstand yesterday. The sides were 1/2" particle board. They were attached to the front with two drywall screws. Of course, someone pulled it out and delaminated the particle board on the drawer front.

One of my retail customers, a buying club, used to sell a lot of one brand of furniture. Some of it was damaged or had bad finish (or parts missing finish) right out of the box. Their sister company in Dayton told them 80% of their pre-delivery repairs were this one brand. I fixed a recliner for a guy once from that brand whose mechanism had broken. He had the chair 2 years and this was the third mechanism. And the mfr sent the replacement, not a ready to install mech, but a box of parts, so I needed to get the old one out, take out most of the hardware (nuts and bolts) to assemble the new one. Most brands you'd get 4 attachment bolts off the the footrest, 4 off the chair frame, then swap the part out.

You can get syringes multiple places. I used to get insulin syringes at my local pharmacy. If they won't sell them to you or you'd have to buy a large quantity, you can get veterinary syringes at places like Rural King or Tractor Supply. They are a larger diameter, but sometimes you need that.

If you can't find the low viscosity glue, some people will drill a small hole on a hidden side and inject glue in the joint that way. Just be aware that most mortises are way deeper than the tenon going in. So there's a lot of empty space in there.

all done

Amazing!

Thanks for the lessons and guidance, the finished repairs look great.

Nice save on a good old red oak chair. Certainly worth the effort. Looks great!

I found a way to clip and save the chair reglue article on Libby version of the book I mentioned.

chair reglue.pdf