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Hawk Hawk is offline
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Default Table Leg Repair part Deux

On 2/26/2020 7:21 PM, John McGaw wrote:
On 2/26/2020 6:02 PM, Hawk wrote:
I had a chance to look at the table leg and it was a clean break. I
slid the leg back into the base, fit right in and it looked great. It
even held in place. Therefore, my question is what anyone thinks of
simply gluing or epoxying the leg without trying to cut off the base
or adding a rod/dowel in the center? Do you think it'll be just as
strong? If so, what epoxy/glue do you recommend?

Thanks


No matter how you look at it, a glue joint there will be end-grain, thus
the weakest possible no matter what sort of glue you use. If it was my
repair I'd certainly be adding some sort of reinforcement.

As an aside, if I remember the pictures you provided, the portion
remaining attached at the top was pretty thin. Is there access inside
the piece to get a drill in? If so it would (well, might) be possible to
put the joint together, drill down through the case into the top of the
leg and into the broken section making the alignment of a dowel ever so
much simpler. A less elegant solution would be to drill, glue, and
insert a long deck-type screw from inside but that might be even
stronger than a dowel and would require a smaller-diameter hole to be
drilled. Just a SWAG...


That top part left on the table is part of the leg and attached to the
table. I would need to flush cut it off using my thin saw, similar to a
Japanese saw, reattach to the leg with glue, then drill a hole in the
center to add a dowel, leaving that dowel protruding from the top, drill
a hole in the table for that dowel, then glue the entire leg back to the
table. Thus, the glue or epoxy will still need to be strong enough to
hold the leg to the table, but the dowel will provide strength mainly
when someone pulls the table along the floor.