Help me safely disassemble a rocking chair
October 19, 2014 7:46 PM Subscribe
Furniture makers, DIYers, other knowledgeable hive mind folks: Is it possible to safely disassemble and then reassemble this rocking chair to make it easier to ship or pack?
It's like this, only without the college degree. Details inside.
If all goes well, my daughter will have her first child (my first grandchild) in 4 months. Yay! A relative offered to give her the rocking chair that once belonged to my mother and in which my daughter was rocked as a baby. This chair is not vintage, not valuable, simply old. Naturally the kidlet said yes. Problem is, she lives in Europe. I do not. I understand that it may seem silly to cart chunks of wood to a European nation that has plenty of its own damn rocking chairs. The question is not, Is this worth doing? The question is, Can I (or someone else) safely disassemble and then reassemble a rocking chair like this without destroying it? If so, how?
If all goes well, my daughter will have her first child (my first grandchild) in 4 months. Yay! A relative offered to give her the rocking chair that once belonged to my mother and in which my daughter was rocked as a baby. This chair is not vintage, not valuable, simply old. Naturally the kidlet said yes. Problem is, she lives in Europe. I do not. I understand that it may seem silly to cart chunks of wood to a European nation that has plenty of its own damn rocking chairs. The question is not, Is this worth doing? The question is, Can I (or someone else) safely disassemble and then reassemble a rocking chair like this without destroying it? If so, how?
Possibly, but probably not.
The chair in the photo, at least, is glued together - there are no fasteners to unscrew. The only way it comes apart is if the glued joints can be disassembled without damage. This might just be possible if the chair is old enough to have been put together with hide glue (FWIW many musical instruments are assembled with hide glue, just so they can be taken apart for repairs), but then you'd be left with a box full of chair parts & it would not be at all easy to get them back together. And if it was built with a more modern glue, more than likely the parts would splinter before they'd come apart.
posted by mr vino at 8:00 PM on October 19, 2014 [1 favorite]
The chair in the photo, at least, is glued together - there are no fasteners to unscrew. The only way it comes apart is if the glued joints can be disassembled without damage. This might just be possible if the chair is old enough to have been put together with hide glue (FWIW many musical instruments are assembled with hide glue, just so they can be taken apart for repairs), but then you'd be left with a box full of chair parts & it would not be at all easy to get them back together. And if it was built with a more modern glue, more than likely the parts would splinter before they'd come apart.
posted by mr vino at 8:00 PM on October 19, 2014 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Assuming that it really isn't old (old windsor chairs were put together without glue, so it would be very hard to dissassemble without destroying it), I still don't think it's a very feasible plan because you don't know what kind of glue is holding it together. I've used an electric kettle to steam apart chairs that were built with animal glue but if it's post war then it could be some other substance and not likely to come apart. If somebody did a repair with PVA wood glue or epoxy at some point in the past few decades, it could mean that you could get 80% of it apart and then get stalled on a few critical joints. Also, that's a TON of components to label and reassemble. The labour involved on both ends of the equation would be pretty considerable and it might wind up low on the "to do" list at the other end.
God, I'm just realizing something. I've refinished/rebuilt a few chairs in my day but I can count three old family chairs in my house and garage that never got put together because they sat as a project heap until I mislaid a piece.
posted by bonobothegreat at 8:13 PM on October 19, 2014 [1 favorite]
God, I'm just realizing something. I've refinished/rebuilt a few chairs in my day but I can count three old family chairs in my house and garage that never got put together because they sat as a project heap until I mislaid a piece.
posted by bonobothegreat at 8:13 PM on October 19, 2014 [1 favorite]
Best answer: I count forty-two joints. The amount of time, skill, patience and flat-out luck necessary to disassemble a piece like that, with the narrow turnings, is high. Glue notwithstanding, wood isn't necessarily completely cured when assembly occurs so sometimes the joints lock as the result of differential shrinkage as the wood cures as well.
tl;dr if you manage to disassemble and reassemble that chair I would be very impressed. I don't think it is even remotely close to worth the effort vs the cost for shipping it "whole".
Best wishes to all.
posted by vapidave at 9:31 PM on October 19, 2014
tl;dr if you manage to disassemble and reassemble that chair I would be very impressed. I don't think it is even remotely close to worth the effort vs the cost for shipping it "whole".
Best wishes to all.
posted by vapidave at 9:31 PM on October 19, 2014
Response by poster: Wow, all the answers were so helpful. Thanks for helping bring me to my senses!
posted by Bella Donna at 10:06 PM on October 19, 2014
posted by Bella Donna at 10:06 PM on October 19, 2014
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by BillMcMurdo at 7:59 PM on October 19, 2014