Repair Bar Stool
Here is an example of New Product Failure where a seemingly good set of bar stools was on discount during a closeout. An initial inspection showed no signs of damage and the chairs were purchased.
Now you get home and within a few days the arm comes off one of the chairs. I mean the arm just fell cleanly off the chair. You immediately start second guessing your great purchase as maybe not so great. What’s a person to do?
Deal with it and FIX IT!
This can be a simple furniture repair job. The chair frame is wood that was screwed and glued together during the manufacturing process. There are two basic problems here to start with; first the frame is made from a soft wood and second the gluing was not done satisfactorily. The result is after people pulled on the chair arm a few times, the arm just came off. Of the two chairs, only one arm seemed to have a problem, at least at this time.
The arm is attached to the chair frame and held together primarily by glue. There is one screw in each of the butt joints that provided the initial method to hold the pieces together while the glue dried. The screws do not provide much additional strength in keeping the joints together but does provide some additional strength in case of side impact. However with the glue not holding, the screws just pulled out of the soft wood frame.
The repair is straight forward using the same assembly method as used by the
manufacture. The screws could be replaced but in this case you would have to completely remove the screw and wood plug that covers the screw. Which also means you would have to replace the wood plug, re-stain and finish the top of the arm. So the approach here is to duplicate what the manufacture did, just do a better job.
Steps to repair
- Clean any old glue and anything that would inhibit a tight fitting joint.
- Fill the screw hole where the screw pulled out of the frame with carpenter’s wood filler. This just again duplicates the assembly of the manufacture.
- Apply a liberal amount of premium wood glue to all of the butt joints of both pieces.
- Attach the arm onto the chair frame and clamp tightly. You may want to use other pieces of wood between the clamps and chair frame to keep from scratching the chair surface. As shown in the picture, it is best to place clamps where all joints, two in this case, are pressed firmly together.
- Wipe off any excess glue with a damp paper towel and let stand 12 hours. Remove the clamps and the finished product is better than ever.
Advanced Repair: This chair is a good example of poor craftsmanship when joining the end surface of one piece of wood to another piece running perpendicular with only glue. For example a dowel joint would be more effective. There are other methods of making a better joint but you may want to try this repair method first. If the problem continues, then the suggestion would be to use the dowel joint.
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