Metal Chair Spreaders

[Peleroda]

Hi Guys,
This is my first post here. I have been asked by a lady friend of mine to "restore" some old school chairs she has. I'm OK with most of the dismantling and cleaning up joints and re-glueing etc as I have built a few pieces over the years. These chairs however are obviously designed for a pretty hard life and have metal/wire spreaders fitted underneath the dowel spreaders. One end of these is bent at 90 Deg and sits flush into the legs and the other end has what appears to be a washer put over the end and then the wire/metal is "hammered" or punched to roll onto the washer and lock that end in place. What is the best way to remove these without doing too much damage to the legs? It's not as if the chairs are very valuable but I would like to clean them up and make them reasonably secure for her as she has her heart set on using them. Any suggestions welcome, I just don't want to have to try and cut new wires and duplicate the process. I hope the photos shed some light.

Cheers

Peter

[bsrlee]

Just how essential are the rods to the function of the chairs? Does the client really want the rods in place on the refinished chairs? If you don't need the rods then you could cut them in the middle, trim the ends off & epoxy them into their old positions - the rods are tension members to stop the legs being pulled off the ends of the spreaders, so if they are not going to be used by a bunch of rowdies the chairs without the rods may already be strong enough for their intended use.

As far as I can see the only way to remove those from the chair frame is with an angle grinder to grind the peened over end of the rod off. Of course then you are going to have to fabricate 4 new rods per chair and manage to peen over the ends without distorting the rods.

It would be a major pita to set up a jigs, do the hooked end bit right, then anneal the end of the rod, fit it up then clamp it really tight in an engineers vice to peen the ends over a washer while supporting the chair.

Of course you may be a miracle worker with the welder, in which case you could cut the rods in the middle, then weld them together after refinishing the chairs. Clutching at straws time there.

[Peleroda]

You hit the nail on the head, I'm no whizz with a welder and the work involved in making new rods is putting me off starting. The chairs were obviously designed to withstand a bit of rough-housing, being school chairs but will they hold up to occasional use in a domestic situation if I just dismantle them and re-glue all the joints? Thanks for your input.
Cheers

[bsrlee]

A late spark of inspiration: You could grind the peened end off, shorten the whole rod a few inches/cm, then weld a short length of all thread rod on, clean up the weld and then use a cap nut over a washer to finish it off - you will probably have to have a few goes at getting the length right. I take it you know the trick of putting an expendable nut on the rod past the cut off point, then winding it back to restore the thread. You ay even be able to find unplated brass cap nuts at somewhere like Coventry Fasteners.

[Peleroda]

Good suggestion thanks, I have started to grind the peened ends off and remove the wires, I am just not sure if I need to make the effort to refit them. The only problem I can see with the cap nut is it may me a hazard for shoes/calves etc. I will probably re-glue and reassemble the first chair and have a look at it and see whether I need the wires or not. If I do I think I might recess the bent end a little further and try and recess the washer and hope I have enough length to re-peen.

[gyropilot]

I had a customer bring something similar in for repair some years ago.
We took the wires out, stripped/stained/lacquered the wood work, and then threaded the ends of the wires to take a nut (and washer). In this case there was just enough wire to get the washer and nut onto.... Customer was happy....


Geoff

[Peleroda]

Thanks for that idea Geoff,
I hadn't considered threading the ends but that may well be easier than trying to re-peen them. I'll let you know how I go.
Cheers
Peter