Pro Handyman Blog

If that wooden chair leg is wobbling again, pay attention or call your handyman. Wooden chairs and wood bar stools are put together similarly. The ends of the legs typically are round like a dowel, and the seat that they mate with receive the round end of the dowel. This assembly is glued together and sometimes pinned with a brad to hold it together until it dries.

Sometimes this glue-to-wood bond breaks and it needs to be repaired. There really is no stronger bond than glue and wood as the chemical reaction makes the joint rock solid. This bond is far stronger than any nail or screw into wood.

The key is to remove the old glue from both the end of the leg and the hole into which it mates. To clean the end of the dowel, you can use sandpaper and go to work. Larger grit sandpaper will remove material faster. For the hole in the wood chair, you can use a wire brush (like you find to clean copper pipe) and chuck it into a drill. Once you chew through some glue, you can move to a smaller sanding drum. The goal is to get down to bare wood so that the glue-to-wood bond can take hold. You may find that with all of this sanding the dowel may have a little play in it when gluing it back together. You can use a plane and cut a few thin shavings from scrap wood. You can use this to build back up the thickness of the dowel.

Slather everything up with wood glue and push it all together. You can use a variety of clamps to hold everything together until it dries.