Repairing chair struts

[Arbu]

I have some chairs which are made out of wood and on which the cross-bars under the seat have a tendency to fall out after some time. They were originally held in place by a small plug carved on each end of each cross-bar which fitted into a matching hole in the leg of the chair. But unfortunately the plugs are breaking over a period of use, leaving their ends in the chair legs. I need to put the cross-bars back in place somehow. The possibilities seem to be:

1. Glueing. Probably not strong enough by itself.
2. Nailing through the legs. The problem is that the chair legs are about 4cm wide, so a nail would have to go right through this before going into the plug. This would be unsightly, might split the wood in the leg, and it could be hard to prevent the nail from missing the cross-bar.
3. Some sort of nail that I can stick partly into the cross-bar where the plug was. After doing this replace the cross bar and somehow force the projecting end of the nail into the part of the plug which has remained in the leg.

Are there any nails that I can buy that are designed to do something like 3? Maybe nails on which you can break the head-off after hammering them in to reveal another sharp end? Or do you have any other ideas as to how I can go about this?

Thanks for any advice.

 

[JohnD]

This is a dowelled joint. It is possible to buy new dowels (very cheap) and drill out the old ones, then refit them with glue.

Your repair will probably be less strong than the original build, and not last very long. Were these chairs expensive? If not then (unless you can train your family not to put their feet on the rails and break them again) you might start saving up for new chairs.

Alternatively you could use a long screw. Drill for it through the chair legs first; then put the rail back into position and drill a pilot hole into the rail, and drive the screw from the outsidem through the leg, and into the rail. You can countersink the heads to avod scratching yourself on the screw heads.

 

[Arbu]

This is a dowelled joint. It is possible to buy new dowels (very cheap) and drill out the old ones, then refit them with glue.

Your repair will probably be less strong than the original build, and not last very long. Were these chairs expensive? If not then (unless you can train your family not to put their feet on the rails and break them again) you might start saving up for new chairs.

Alternatively you could use a long screw. Drill for it through the chair legs first; then put the rail back into position and drill a pilot hole into the rail, and drive the screw from the outsidem through the leg, and into the rail. You can countersink the heads to avod scratching yourself on the screw heads.

Thanks very much. The chairs are about ten years old and were about £100 each. They were from Habitat and I'm a bit disappointed that this should have happened. They are part of a set so I'm not too keen to replace them all for the sake of fixing one or two. So I think I'll have a go at repairing them with new dowels and see how that lasts. No-one's been putting their feet on the rails, but they have had a lot of use, so no doubt that's the cause.