Antique Furniture Repair

This is what my wife's family has always called the Settle. It came east from Connecticut at around 1810 with one of her ancestors who was a Revolutionary War veteran. It has until now been a survivor. It has always been usable just not used very often. 

Yesterday, during our pre fireworks part it finally broke one of the rockers and now we have a problem. 

Does anyone have any idea about how to fix something like this?

Glue will fix the break, and be stronger than the wood.

Dad did this as a museum curator, was trained at the Smithsonian and has worked on furniture at Colonial Williamsburg, the Ringling Museum, and others.

He chimed in on some stuff that (I think) Keith was working on at one point. 

I'll see if he can check in.

Mr_Asa said:

Dad did this as a museum curator, was trained at the Smithsonian and has worked on furniture at Colonial Williamsburg, the Ringling Museum, and others

Good heavens - he certainly seems like the man for this job! What a cool background. 

Hopefully Mr_Asa's dad can weigh in, but as mtn said, glue is likely your best bet. I had a teak chair split badly and just used Weldwood wood glue and clamped it really firmly overnight and fifteen years later you still can't tell which one is the split chair. It makes a strong, nearly invisible repair. Any quality wood glue should work; that's just what I had on hand.

Well, if you have to break a rocker, that's the kind to break.  The pictures are kind of dark, but it looks to me like it is half-lappped onto the bottom of the legs, rather than the kind that the legs have a tenon turned on bottom of the legs; with those you have to disassemble the chair to get a new rocker on.   Could you get me a better picture of just the breaks, with some light on it?

It looks like cherry; is it?

Gluing it is certainly worth trying.  The longer break looks new and clean, it should work fine.  But the shorter one just under the leg post looks like it's been broken for a while (unless it's my imagination and the lighting), it may not be as successful.  If it has, there will be dust in the wood on the mating surfaces, and probably some wear - which will prevent a perfect glue joint.  And to have a glue joint stand up to two people rocking, it must be perfect.  The type of glue doesn't matter, all it needs to be is stronger than the wood, which all woodworking glues are.  But glues don't have any shear strength, which is why the mating surfaces must be perfect.  If the glue is filling a gap, it will fail.

My major professor was German; between the two world wars, he had a job building wooden airframes, biplanes with doped canvas skins.  The glue used was hide glue; he said they were required to glue joints together within a half-hour of being freshly scraped, or the mating surfaces had to be scraped again.  Joints have to be perfect.

I would glue the long break first; don't try to do them at the same time, more chance for error.  As always, before you use any glue, do a test clamping, dry, to be sure how you're going to do it.  Use two small C-clamps on the flat sides to make sure they don't drift out of the same plane.  (Be warned, when you're gluing two tapers together, the glue initially acts like a lubricant, and they will slide apart.)  Use some scraps of formica or plexiglass under the clamp heads to keep them from denting the wood.  Then figure out how you're going to clamp the wood top to bottom without denting the wood.  A lot of bar clamps come with rubber covers for the clamp heads.

For the front break, I would remove the wooden peg that holds the rocker to the leg.  But I'm going to stop now, until you post a better picture of the front break.  I didn't set out to write an essay, this already more than people want to read.  I'll continue later.

At worst, it's not that big a deal to make a replacement rocker, I can walk you through it.

In reply to Asas_Dad :

Thanks Dad

Thanks, here is another picture. I do believe this is cherry. It doesn't look like it was rubbing for very long the surfaces look rough and not worn. I can see that there have been some modifications over time, the peg has been replaced by a screw at some point. I wonder is this was a bench originally and was made into a rocker later. My Mother in Law had this refinished sometime in the late 90s and this probably destroyed some of the value. 

Thanks for the pic.  It confirms what I thought.  See the difference in color (blonde) in the new break and the old one just under the foot of the front post?  That latter has been broken long enough for the wood to oxidize and darken.  And for that matter, the new break has been wanting to occur for a while, too.  See the oxidation on the tip ends of the break?  Whoever actually broke it only hurried it along.  Always a risk when you saw a curve into a board with straight grain.

If the wooden peg in the rear foot has also been replaced with a screw, I'd  take the rocker off to work on it.  The inside face of the rocker was probably glued to the flat sawn into the leg, you may need to soak it with water to loosen it.  (Patience, don't force it.)  Once it's off, scrub that glue away with a toothbrush and  hot water so you have clean gluing surfaces when you reinstall the rocker.  

Go ahead and glue the long break back together.  The next day after it has set, clean up any glue squeeze-out with more hot water.  (I'm assuming you're going to use yellow woodworker's glue.)   After that closely examine how well that short piece from the front fits onto its break in the rocker.   If it doesn't fit back together well enough that you can just barely see the line of  the break, you're going to need to use epoxy, which does have good gap-filling properties.  And it's messy, nasty to work with.   Let me know when you get to that point.

It could have been a bench that was made into a rocker, but that type of rocker  construction was certainly common enough, especially in the northeast and among the Shakers.   And it's simpler to build.

I was going to chime in, but.... wow.

Let's give it up for Asas_dad.

Thanks for the help. Looks like I have some work to do. 

I didn't realize you could clean up excess (dried) wood glue with warm water and patience.. I thought it had to be removed mechanically!

Thanks Dad!

In reply to WonkoTheSane :

Yes.  It's interesting, most woodworking (yellow) glue is polyvinylacetate (PVA), and is also thermoplastic, for a while.  That means you can coat a piece of wood and a piece of veneer with a thin layer, let it dry, (for less than 24 hours), and iron the veneer on with a hot clothes iron.  But I don't know about the new Titebond III, which is waterproof.

PVA glues also have a tendency to "creep" slowly over the years.

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

I was going to chime in, but.... wow.

Let's give it up for Asas_dad.

I know, right? 

Thank you for the help, Asa’s dad. 

In reply to DrMikeCSI :  Shouldn't be that big a deal once you have the clamps and glues in place,  an hour or two over 2-3 days.  Patience, work carefully, no hurry.  Done right, only you'll know it's there.  Let me know how well that front break fits together.

In reply to Mr_Asa :

Not that big a deal, Son.  This is an easy one; and it's actually kinda nice writing for people that will accept my expertise.  Unlike Reddit woodworking https://www.reddit.com/r/woodworking/new/ where most are newbies, and the older ones with genuine experience seldom chime in. 

In reply to Asas_Dad :

The weight given to an expert's words is one of the reasons I like this place 

Here is what it looks like with just rubber bands. Now I need to get a set of clamps. 
interesting that the screw and hole no longer line up. 

In reply to DrMikeCSI :

Good picture, tells me what I need to know.  And if you have to have a break, that's the best kind; clean, and a long gluing surface.  The worst is a break dead across the grain.  That long break will go back together just fine, all you'll need is to touch up the edges of the break; you might want to do that before you glue it.

For clamps, I would use 3 small C clamps on the flat faces, one each on each end of the break, one in the center.  These will keep it flat and hopefully keep it from sliding apart, if they're cranked down tightly.  You're going to want some sort of plastic like Formica samples to keep from denting the wood.  On the top and bottom of the rocker you're also going to want three short bar clamps.  I bought my last two from Ace Hardware; they come with rubber boots on the clamp ends, just to prevent marring.  Put one each smack on top of the ends of the break, you want that closed tight.  Then one in the middle (or two, if you feel like buying another.)  If the tapers slide sideways, take it apart while still wet, scrub off the glue with hot water, try again the next day when it's dry.  If it goes well, take the clamps off the next day, clean up the glue squeeze-out.

Now that I see it, it looks like you're going to need epoxy on the front break.  That'll be the next installment.  And I have to tell you, although this will get the bench back together and usable, it may not last forever.  There is a reason that it broke in the first place, likely due to the grain orientation.  If it breaks again, it'll be right next to those.

Interesting - and not too surprising.  But that screw doesn't go all the way through the leg post, does it?  So it wasn't originally pegged together, it originally had a screw.

Just wondering how you're doing, DrMikeCSI?  Any luck?