Restoring a chair presents special problems. The wooden surfaces are covered with old glue and the joints are loose, making it difficult to create a strong bond. And not only must you reassemble the chair parts, the adhesive you use must fill the voids in the loose joints. We test several readily-available glues for both their strength and gap-filling properties. We also investigate several materials made just for chair repair that claim to secure the joints either by filling the gaps or swelling the wood to fit.
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They make incredibly strong hot melt glues, some generic industrial brand I can find for cheap in a local store has a dual melt and "Industrial" High Temp only stick that is milky white. This stuff melts at 180-210 C and is a lot stiffer when set. When liquefied at high temp and applied to a rough porous material, it sticks really well, almost as much if not more than wood glues or epoxy. Beware, it's hard to remove from surfaces.
The nice thing is that it can also "braze weld" Polyethylene or polypropylene plastics that are otherwise unglueable. I say braze weld because it makes a joint as strong as attempting to plastic weld it. Silicones, polyurethanes (1 or 2 part) don't stick as well.
I appreciate the review but I'm sticking with my sparkly glow in the dark school glue.🤣
My project is a low Japanese table that has come apart on two legs and has two loose leg joints. It was made with triple miters for the leg to apron conection. It looks to have been repaired before. My question is how the glues will cohere to the old glue if I just try to put it together with glue over old glue or do I have to remove the old glue to get a good bond.
Any help would be appreciated.
‘Good video…..learned a lot.
John from California
Not at all surprised to see the epoxy win the raw numbers game – epoxy is somewhat legendary for its ability to hold things together. Was surprised to see the Titebond do so well, given the lack of clamping. I'm only somewhat familiar with wood glues in general, but I know that Titebond is one generally considered to require clamping to produce an acceptable bond, and looking at the amount of wood in that break, it's pretty clear that the glue wasn't really at fault for that failure.
Does make me wonder why the epoxy scored so much higher, though – if it's a failure in the wood, the number should reflect the strength of the wood, and as long as you used the same wood for each part, that variable should be accounted for. Or does the strength of the lignin bonds in wood just vary that much?
Thank you so much. I need to tighten six ancient chairs and your video has helped me choose my glue. Your expertise and precision is unmatched.
Hi, just came across your video on the best glue for chair repair. I'm a few years late but hopefully you're able to answer one question for me. the Briwax glue that made the spindle expand, I wonder if over time if the spindle would shrink back to it's original size? Great video 👍
Exactly what I needed, thanks.
This is amazing 🤩
Thanks, very informative.
Hi Nick. Love your videos.
One question. Your test measured tensile strength. I wonder how the results would be different if you measured shear strength. The dynamic forces on chair joints tends to be more shear than tensile.