How To Repair Split Queen Ann Legs To Your Furniture

How-To: Leg Repair For A Queen

1 of the well-nigh mutual repairs that find their manner into the shop is leg repair on small tables. Small pegs, glue, and a few screws holding on the legs are usually sufficient for years of service. But inevitably the twenty-four hours comes when someone kicks a leg out, and you're left with a three-legged dilemma. This table is such a case. Here's how we stock-still it.

When the joint gave way, two things happened — a piece near the joint snapped a flake of wood off at the screw, and the opposing screw ripped out of its seat in the lesser of the table. Queen Ann legs are both beautiful and frail, but they're ofttimes a bitch to match and replace, so fixing it was the best option.

The leg was easy. A little cleaning and some wood glue got the leg back in one piece. That was set in the soft jaws of a clamp to dry overnight.

Adjacent was to survey the wreckage left behind from the leg exiting the seat. 1 screw pigsty was fine, so it required no attention.

The large seat peg pigsty needed to be sanded out lightly to remove all the erstwhile glue to make room for the new glue.

The hole that was ripped to shreds was another matter. I dabbed in some wood glue in the expanse and then stuffed a cotton swab in to rout out the excess and push the glue into the cracks and irregularities and let it set overnight. This simply keeps it from separating anymore than it already is.

After the allotted 24-60 minutes period it was time to mate the estranged leg to its table for the second time in its life. A generous helping of forest glue was set up into the peg hole and the leg set in its place. The threads of each screw got a bead of Gorilla glue and were paw-cranked into a snug fit. The glue would hold the peg as before, and as the Gorilla expanded against the screw and wood information technology would lock the threads in place snugly, even in beat-up woods.

My friend's tabular array was again back up to four legs and shows no wobble or grievous wound from the meet. The but outward signs there had even been an incident is the small-scale fissure line in the top of one leg, which couldn't be helped without refinishing or replacing the bottom piece.

I should as well accept this opportunity to point out that this was a functionality repair on a table that, while valuable to its owner, is not a museum antique or priceless piece. If you're concerned about how a repair will affect the value of a article of furniture, consult an antiquarian repair professional person who deals in period-correct restoration.