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Don Weisman writes:

Anyone doing repairs has had their share of repairing falling apart
chairs. These photo's are of a set of 5 Rubbertree tree wood
spindle chairs made in Thailand. All had at least 1 busted leg tenon
while others were loose and wobbly. All had busted or falling off
stretchers. (Broken tenons were repaired in the usual manner
previously described)

What is not typical of cheaply made chairs was the concept of
engineering manufacture. These particular chairs in fact were very
good. The back spindle unit is lag bolted and tenonned in and all
were tight. But they really blew it on leg structure when it came to
assembly. You can see the step tenon in photo 3 and mating step
hole in photo 4.

The idea is to load the joint with an adhesive and insert the grooved
tenon. Both the hole and the tenon are stepped so that the excess
glue will be retained by the narrow step as it squeezes out. But they
forgot 1 thing. The glue! What small amount the glue gun shot in, is
all at the bottom and none squeezed up. All of the parts were
pinned with either pin nails or screws. But none penetrated through
the parts.

Photo 1-Basic chair.
Photo 2-Coming apart. Typical off parts plus loose legs.
Photo 3-Note the Step tenon.
Photo 4-Shows the mating Stepped bore hole.

The manufacturer pasted a sticker on the seat bottom saying the
chair was guaranteed (for what?) and printed his phone number
too.

Don Weisman
Texas










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