Chair repair despair, mes cheres.

March 1, 2020 9:45 AM

We've thought of a couple of solutions for repairing these chairs but haven't done anything I think out of uncertainty about what's the best way to go. Difficulty level: no access to anything like a wood workshop.So...

These are medium nice Heywood Wakefield chairs, not one of the super distinctive lines but they're attractive and I've had them for a dozen years. They came with what looked like cheesecloth on the cushions so I made a little project of learning the very most basic upholstery and put some nice fabric over it, then screwed the cushions back onto the frames.

About a year later, the cushions started coming off on two of them and it seems like basically the hole the screws are going through is reamed out and the screws practically fall out now.

I think the possibilities are:

1) Replace the piece of wood on the bottom of the cushion, which I can't really because it's shaped and I have no real way to get a similarly shaped piece of wood.

2) drill a new hole in the chair frame and put a new screw in, which I'd rather not do because it's nice vintage furniture and I'd feel a little like I was messing it up.

3) wood glue a thin piece of wood onto the wood backing that fits between it and the frame, that the screw will now go through.

4) other thing I am not thinking of because I'm not all that hand but you are thinking of because you are all that handy.

Ok I should put in a pic for reference.

Thanks!

posted by less of course to Home & Garden (12 answers total)

Cut and sand a disposable wood/bamboo chopstick into a little peg that will fit the original screw hole. Wood glue it in to fill the hole. Let it dry. Re-screw into the same hole that now contains new “wood” so the screw can bite into it.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 9:56 AM on March 1, 2020 [1 favorite]

Buy tiny can of wood fill. Fill holes, let dry - really dry. Re-drill holes, replace screws.
posted by tula at 10:01 AM on March 1, 2020

Buy a washer/bolt combination so that the bolt fits through the holes and is countersunk into the washer, put the bolt and washer under the cloth and use a mallet to not too forcefully pound it down into the wood to be as flush as possible (and maybe add an extra layer of padding material under the cloth) and then use another washer and a nut to attach it to the frame of the chair.
posted by jamjam at 10:55 AM on March 1, 2020

Get some wood matches, rip off match head, insert into the screw hole with wood glue to shim it and give the screw something to grab. I'd start with the small ones, not the kitchen size. Wood coffee stirrers might suffice. My uncle dealt antiques, always had a variety of wood matches and shims.

1) Replace the piece of wood. Nah, expert job, not necessary
2) drill a new hole. If my comment (and others') above doesn't work, this may eventually be necessary.
3) wood glue a thin piece of wood Nope
4) other thing above.
posted by theora55 at 11:09 AM on March 1, 2020

Jamjam: for this I'd use a carriage bolt as it has a smooth head with a shallow dome, so it will likely not be noticeable under the existing padding. Also, the square section right underneath the head will wedge itself into the wood if you match the bolt shaft to the hole drilled in the frame.

Less of course: the most durable way to solve this is to put insert nuts into the cushion frame, and use matching bolts to attach the seat to the chair. You will have to enlarge the hole in the frame to accept the insert, and my own belt-and-suspenders method of working would have the nuts threadlocked into that hole using a two-component putty.
posted by Stoneshop at 11:24 AM on March 1, 2020

Also: the fasteners known for some obscure reason as sex bolt, or barrel bolt. Like Jamjam's (standard/carriage) bolt you have to insert the barrel part of the sex bolt from the top into the cushion frame so you have to undo (part of) the upholstery to get them in.
posted by Stoneshop at 11:54 AM on March 1, 2020

Woodfiller. Fill the holes (you can use a standard kitchen spatula) and after it dries, re-screw the seats in place.
posted by DarlingBri at 12:04 PM on March 1, 2020

If this is built like I'm thinking (a thin piece of plywood that is not exactly recently with cutouts at the corners for legs, all wrapped in fabric with a cushion in the middle, then dropped into the chair frame), then option 3 will work with the least hassle.

Also low hassle: staples. Staple into the plywood (through the fabric) on either side of the screws. Use a staple gun, not an office stapler.

Most of the archive above is good (fill the hole with bamboo, matches, etc then rescrew) if the upholstery is going into a thick piece of solid wood.

My advice was for if the upholstery is attached to a thin plywood board. Filling holes in thin wood never works for me, but gluing another thin board can spread out the load.
posted by Acari at 12:39 PM on March 1, 2020

If you’d be willing to slightly enlarge the holes in the frame, just use the next size larger (in diameter) screws. If the originals are #8, then get #10’s of the same length.

Wood filler is not a good solution here.
posted by jon1270 at 1:54 PM on March 1, 2020 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks for all the suggestions. I'm kind of picking through them...
posted by less of course at 5:16 PM on March 1, 2020

The bottoms are plywood (right?), so no worries about splitting them and nthing gluing in match stick/chop stick fragments. Don't use wood filler. Wood filler is for cosmetic filling that you're going to paint over - it's not for structural repair.
posted by bonobothegreat at 7:21 PM on March 1, 2020 [2 favorites]

Second/third/fourthing nouvelle-personne, theora55, Acari, and bonobothegreat. For a simple, durable repair use wood glue with toothpick, match stick, chopstick or whatever little sticks you have.
posted by anadem at 9:26 AM on March 2, 2020