Reamers.—See Bits.
Repairing Furniture.—To repair thoroughly—to make things as strong as when new and to leave no sign of the mending—often requires more skill and ingenuity and more general knowledge of wood-working than to make new articles. Skill in repairing comes not merely from general knowledge of wood-working, but from experience and ingenuity in applying your knowledge to new problems. You will rarely have two jobs of repairing just alike, even if of the same kind, and the variety is almost endless. It is, therefore, impossible to give rules to cover all the different cases. In fact, to attempt to give complete directions for repairing would be to describe the majority of operations used in wood-working, and the reader is referred to other parts of the book for whatever information it may contain. Suggestions on one or two points may, however, be of use.
Suppose the arm of a chair comes off, after having been stuck on with glue perhaps a dozen times. How is it usually mended each time it comes off? The family glue-pot, containing the dregs of all the glue used since it was bought, is put on the stove, a little water poured in, and as soon as the glue gets warmed into a thick paste a lot of it is daubed on to the joints, on top of the thick coating they already have, and the arm pushed as nearly into place as it will go. It is then usually left for a few hours and sometimes even tied on with a string while the glue dries. Of course it sticks for a while and then the usual result follows.
Now how should you go to work to do this properly? First clean off all the old glue. This is important. You want to put the fresh glue on the wood, not on top of the old glue; but do not scrape away the wood in getting off the glue so that the parts will no longer fit. Next, see whether the pieces will fit together as they should. If they will, then contrive some way to clamp them in place while the glue is drying. Sometimes hand-screws will do this, sometimes clamps, sometimes a rope twisted, and often it will take all your ingenuity to contrive any arrangement, but clamped they must be if you wish to be sure of a good job.
Fig. 647.
The pieces often make an angle with one another, or are curved, so that the clamps or hand-screws will not hold, but slip as fast as you tighten them. In such a case the method shown in Fig. 647 can often be used. Screw a hand-screw firmly on each side of the joint, rubbing chalk on the insides of the jaws to help prevent slipping, and putting on the hand-screws so that the jaws will be parallel. Then, by using two other hand-screws, those first put on can be drawn towards one another and the joint firmly closed. Then proceed to glue the parts as with new work. For the way to do this see Gluing.
In patching old work with new wood, pains should be taken to have the wood match as well as possible, and, as a rule, pare or trim the new pieces after they are glued in place rather than before. Staining to match the older parts is often required (see Staining). See also Holes, To Stop.
The repaired joint may never be quite as strong as a new one, therefore it is well to reinforce it with a block glued and screwed on the under or inner side, in cases where this can be done without injuring the appearance, as inside of the frame under a chair, sofa, or table.
It is not uncommon, particularly in work which has come apart several times, for the tenons to be too small. If you can glue on thin pieces to make the tenon larger, trimming them afterwards to fit, it will be the best way; but if the conditions do not admit of this, a little muslin, laid in glue, can sometimes be wrapped around the tenon as the latter is fitted to place. The same can sometimes be done with round pins or dowels. The expedient of splitting and wedging tenons and dowels can often be applied in repairing (see Mortising and Dowels).