Indy Total Construction

At one time most furniture was made of wood. Today many furniture items are made of other materials such as various kinds of plastic. In any case, it is usually less expensive to repair or refinish a piece of furniture than it is to replace it. Outdoor furniture probably gets more wear and tear than indoor furnitur’e, but it is often easy to repair. Sometimes a few minutes of your time will extend the life of a chair or table.

Besides normal wear and tear, hot, dry air can cause wooden furniture to shrink and come apart. The four most common furniture problems are:

• Wood shrinkage

• Warping

• Worn seating

• Scrapes and scratches

If table or chair legs begin to come unglued, finish knocking them apart with a soft wooden block and a mallet. Remove old glue with a dull knife or hook scraper and sandpaper. Scrape glue out of the holes, too. Remove only the old glue. If you sand off any wood, the joints will be too loose.

Use white vinyl glue and reassemble the chair or table. Wipe up any spills or runs before they dry. Then, with rope or a webbed clamp, clamp the legs in place until the glue dries.

A warped table top can be straightened. Warping is caused by uneven drying. First strip off the paint and varnish. Paint remover is dangerous. Wear rubber gloves and follow the manufacturer’s instructions carefully.

Next soak the wood by piling wet newspaper, wet sawdust, or wet towels on top for four or five days. When the wood is soaked through, remove the newspaper, sawdust, or towels and place weights or clamps on the warped boards. When everything is clamped or weighted down, leave it in a warm dry room for a few days. Move the clamps each day to help the wood dry evenly and prevent cracking.

As soon as the boards have dried straight, refinish BOTH SIDES to keep more moisture from entering or leaving the wood.

This method will not straighten laminated wood. Wait until the weather changes and the laminated piece will straighten by itself. When it does, glue another piece of scrap laminate on the underside. It will remain straight.

A kitchen chair seat or back is held on with only two or four screws. The cushion is usually made of foam or cotton batting covered with cloth or plastic folded over a piece of plywood. Replace old cotton batting with foam cut to size. Polyfoam is softer and lasts longer than cotton batting without getting lumpy or hard.

Cane bottom chairs can be modernized and made more comfortable by removing the cane part of the seat. Cover the seat with a cushion of plywood, polyfoam and a cover of plastic or cloth.

To fix a small scratch on furniture use a crayon-like touchup stick. They come in various shades to match different finishes. Sometimes iodine or shoe dye will work too. If the crack is deep, fill with wood putty. When it dries, rub stick shellac over the area. Stick shellac is applied with a spatula knife heated over an alcohol lamp. Finally, rub with felt or fine steel wool. Sometimes toothpaste will rub out fine scratches

Fill deeper scratches and gouges with wood putty. Cover with stick shellac. Finally rub it down with a felt pad or extra fine steel wool.

Before you can start a woodworking project, you need to be able to talk the talk. That means you need to understand the basic terms of woodworking. If you do not know a mortise from a tenon, then you will be lost on most projects. The following definitions should get you familiar with the types of joints and other terms used in the woodworking art and allow you to speak to others in a common language.

First, let’s start with some basic woodworking definitions. They are in alphabetical order for convenience in searching through them at a later date.

Bevel – A bevel is an angled cut through a piece of wood. Instead of having a square corner, a beveled cut softens the appearance for a more decorative look to elements in a piece of furniture. Bevels are measured and marked using a bevel gauge.

Butt joint – A butt joint is an easy but somewhat weak technique for joining two boards together usually at a right (90 degree) angle. These joints are made simply by gluing and pressing the two flat surfaces together. For increased strength, the joint is usually held together with screws and glue.

Chamfer – A chamfer is the removal of the sharp corner of a section of wood which produces a smooth, beveled edge. This is done to keep the edges from being dangerous.

Dovetail joint – A high quality technique for joining two boards using alternating slots (or tails) and protrusions (or pins). The ends of the joining pieces resemble the v-shaped outline of a bird’s tail. These pieces are snugly fitted together thus increasing the gluing area of the joint. A well made dovetail produces a joint that, even without glue, can be difficult to separate. This is regarded in woodworking as one of the strongest and most reliable forms of wood joinery.

Grain – Grain is the appearance of the annual growth rings of a tree. It is the result of the way the tree was cut.

Miter – The woodworking joint created when two boards are cut at an angle to one another. The most common miter joint is the 45-degree miter such as the cuts used to build square or rectangular picture frames. A miter gauge may be used to assist in making miter cuts at the table saw. A miter jig is extremely useful for most woodworking projects.

Mortise and tenon joint — A joint where the male end, or tenon, of one board fits into the matching opening, or mortise, of another board. This is a common, reliable and fairly strong form of wood joint.

Rabbet – This is a rectangular, stepped recess cut along the edge of a board. Typically a rabbet is cut along the back or inner edges of the four wooden pieces making up a square or rectangular object.

Spline – A thin piece of wood that fits in the mating grooves cut into two pieces of wood usually at right angles to each other. Typically the corners of quality picture frames are reinforced with decorative spline joints.