On Mon, 02 May 2005 05:20:27 GMT, "Norm Dresner" wrote:

I'm intending to repair the break by drilling for and inserting a metal
"dowel" of some sort as a strength member between the two pieces.

That sounds the right sort of idea, but personally I'd use a wooden
dowel. If you use a strong timber - even a broomstick - rather than
typical decorative dowel stock, then this is a strong enough repair for
a desk. Chairs are always a bit harder, because of the racking forces,
but desks are a nice simple static load.

But I have no lathe and I don't see a good way to align the
hole in the tapered rounded leg axially.

Good bench vice, a hand-turned drill and eyeball it. If you're _SLOW_
then you can do this accurately enough. Using an electric drill _will_
encourage you to squeeze just that little bit too hard when "it's going
well", then you'll screw it up.

Start out by chiselling a flat and square starting plane for the
drillbit..


2. I don't know how to get the exact center of the broken end of the leg

Chisel the middle flat. Then use a pencil and finger to draw a tiny
circle in the centre. Eyeballs are surprisingly accurate, if you take
your time.


My biggest fear is getting the holes in the leg parts off-center relative to
one another.

Of course this will happen, for some tiny value of "off center". What
you actually mean here is "How much gap filling will the glue be doing,
after I've adjusted the hole to allow correct alignment".

If you're averagely careful, then the hole will be close enough to allow
white glue or hide glue (your call) in a nice closely fitting joint.
Don't make it _too_ tight, or you'll squeegee the glue off the dowel as
it goes in (and remember to groove the dowel sides a little too).

If it's sloppy, then change glue. I'd go for epoxy with cellulose fibre
filler in it, maybe microballoons on a valuable piece (easier to
dismantle in the future). Some people might use PU glue, which will gap
fill anything easily, but I've never liked the stuff myself.


I should be able to use the
jagged break to align the leg with respect to the case

That should be sufficient to give you a good result.

For clamp up here, I'd splint a leg that was easy, but not one that
required tapered shims. For doing those I turn the piece upside down and
use a brace on the top part, jury-rigged from a chemistry lab stand and
brackets (these are useful workshop equipment, and worth scrounging if
you ever get the chance)


--
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