Reassembling and refinishing mid century chair

[LotteBum]

Hey folks :-)

I bought a couple of mid century Don Rex reclining 'TV chairs' yesterday. One is ok, with just one loose joint, but the other was pretty bad. I'm guessing what had happened was that it has gotten loose, so the previous owner has used PVA glue to tighten things up, but didn't use clamps. They've then come apart a little, so they've run nails through a few of the joints. We managed to soften the PVA glue with the use of a hairdryer (extensive searching on this forum led me to this solution), and spent today stripping and sanding all the pieces.

My question now is this: how do we put the joins back together? I intend to use 'Titebond Liquid Hide' (another recommendation from here), but I'm wondering if I need to do anything else to the joins, i.e. put in some wedges prior to gluing, or should they be ok by just being reglued and clamped well?

Thanks in advance!

Cheers,
Lotte

[Luke Maddux]

Sounds like a cool project, but I'll be the first to tell you that we're gonna need photos. If you took or could source some photos of the assembled piece (or an example from the web) before you started stripping that would be a big help.

Every joint is different and has different requirements for clamping, wedging, gluing, etc. Sure there are some generalizations but to give the best advice we gotsta see it.

Cheers,
Luke

[LotteBum]

Hi Luke,

Thanks for taking the time to respond :-)

Here's a couple of pictures - the chairs as they were, and one of the chairs, as it is now. Does that help at all?

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Thanks in advance :-)

Cheers,
Lotte

[Xanthorrhoeas]

I am sure that Luke will have some good suggestions for you.

For my part, I am a great fan of hide glue and use both the traditional "pearl glue" and the Titebond. OS forums run quite a debate about the Titebond stuff with strong proponents and strong opponents. I have only used it for a couple of years no, with no failures, but that is too soon to give complete support. The main reason that I use hide glue on antiques is that it is the same as the original glue and therefore the join does not have to be completely cleaned out. Hide glues are not renowned for their gap filling ability so the joints have to be very close fitting, but do have the big advantage of reversibility if you do not get it right first time.

That is another way of saying that if you have completely removed all traces of the old adhesive then you could consider a different glue or adhesive if you have sloppy joints. If you loose-fit all the joins then you can assess whether they are still tight. The tenons should fit the mortises with a bit of force, they cannot be sloppy if you are going to use hide glue.

If the tenons are sloppy and no old glue remaining then I would use a gap filling epoxy with a long open time (time to set). Bote-Cote make a good adhesive called Epox-E-Glue (or similar name) and you can mix a dry colouring agent or sawdust to colour it the same as the wood. If you choose it please do some practice batches and let it set first to check the colour. Do not consider any fast set adhesives like PVA as it will most likely go off before you are ready and fully assembled.

The best way to see if you have enough clamps (never too many!) and whether/where you need wedges and padding to protect the chair from the clamps is to do a complete dry run. Assemble all the pieces together - fit each mortise to each tenon - and fit and tighten all the clamps,wedges, packing materials - without using any glue. That gives you an idea of how it will work - but it is still more stress and issues when you actually apply glue/adhesive.

If you use the hide glue you will find it very slippery - and that complicates the glue up so it is good to have someone to help hold things in place - or else use masking tape to hold the parts together while you assemble the clamps.

Good luck.

David

[Luke Maddux]

It looks like a fairly straightforward glue-up.

I would recommending doing it all in one go, gluing and clamping either side of the chair and then gluing and clamping the stretchers between the two sides.

I doubt you need to wedge the tenons/dowels. Are they a good fit? Is there any slop/play when they're together? Do you have to use a bit of force to get them together? It's music to my ears when I get a joint to slide together and make that squeaking sound... ahhhhh.

A couple of things to keep in mind...

1.) Make sure that the tenons and mortises are clean of old glue. Glue bonds to wood fibre far better than it does to old glue.

2.) Do at least one practice run of the glue-up. I haven't used Titebond hide glue, but I know that the PVA glues can begin to grab fairly quickly. I think maybe one of the advantages of hide is that it doesn't? Not sure...

3.) Do it on a flat surface and make sure that, before you leave it to dry, all four legs are on the floor. If they aren't, you may have to loosen, tighten, or reposition some clamps, or you may want to put some weight across the arms of the chair. Once you have checked for flat feet, visually check your joints again to make sure that, in pressing it downward, you haven't loosened the joinery.

4.) PVA glue is water soluble, so I always keep a rag and spray bottle handy and, after I'm comfortable with the clamping and I'm ready to leave it to dry, I clean off the excess while it is still wet. It's easier to just get it all then instead of having to scrape/chisel it off later. Again, not sure about hide glue.

5.) Make sure you use enough glue that some begins to squeeze out of the joint. This (usually) implies good, uniform contact inside the joint.

6.) Don't clamp too hard. You can bow and twist things out of proportion fairly easily. I've done it and it's a quick way to scrap the project.

Hopefully this gets you some life out of the chairs. A bit of an unfortunate thing about a lot of more modern, machine-made chairs is that they are virtually guaranteed to come apart eventually. They are subjected to the forces associated with people squirming around in them, leaning back on them, etc. So this may not be the last time you do this. Nonetheless, you probably want to avoid nailing the joints or anything like that. Some mid-century furniture saw the use of dowelled tenons both as a structural improvement and also an embellishment (see Sam Maloof), but it looks like your tenons may be a bit shallow to get this done properly.

Post photos when you get it where you want it to be.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,
Luke

[fletty]

Hi Lotte,
I agree with the comments above. You seem to have done a VERY good job of disassembling and stripping all of the pieces, WELL DONE! Are there dowels missing though from the top of the pieces 3rd and 4th from the left in your pic?

fletty

[LotteBum]

Hi all,

Thank you so much for your detailed and very informative responses - you've broken it down for me really well.

Fletty, those two pieces are intact - the bits you refer to are the feet, so there's just white plastic thingy-bobs on the bottom of them. There are a couple of joins which aren't awesome - will attach a photo in my next post because I am technologically inadequate.

Regards,
Lotte