Repairing a Chair Questions

[berry]

I've been asked to fix a child's chair. (I haven't said yes at this point.) It's from the early 1980's. Put together with a mix of glue and screwed joints. Problem 1: the chair has a profile on the edge of the rear legs. (see pic) I'm not sure if it's a flute or a double bead or what. But I'm trying to figure out if I can reproduce it in some way. The leg is curved, not straight.

Problem 2: I need to take the glued portion apart to make the new leg. I'm guessing it's not hide glue. How best to take it apart. The glued sections all see pretty strong.

chair detail 282.jpg (1.21 MiB) Viewed 21911 times

Anything you can suggest would be great. Thanks for taking time to read this.

[garys]

If the chair is old, that can work in your favor. I've fixed a number of old chairs that were glued together, and usually that old glue doesn't hold nearly as well as the glues we have today. By wiggling and prying gently on the joints I can usually get them apart.
Just how bad is the leg broken? I've repaired some chairs legs that broke fairly straight across the leg. In that situation, I drill out both broken parts as large as there is wood to work with and insert a home made plug of the right diameter into the breaks. If you make the plug from Hickory or some other really hard and strong wood, the leg can be almost as strong repaired as it was originally.
And, it is much easier than making a new leg.

[videobear]

If you can't repair the original leg as garys suggests, and you can't exactly duplicate the bead profile, could you make TWO new rear legs?

[berry]

Here are a couple pics of the broken leg.

Thought it might help with you seeing more of the project.

chair 861.JPG (1.12 MiB) Viewed 21876 times

chair 862.JPG (1.89 MiB) Viewed 21876 times

[garys]

If you have the missing piece, I would repair it with glue and a couple of small dowels to hold it together.
If that piece is gone forever, then you are best off following your original path and make a new one, or as suggested, make both sides to get an exact match.

[rcplaneguy]

This is a rocking chair?

[berry]

Yes this is a rocker.

The customer does not have the missing piece.

I've been looking at the edge detail and I'm near certain this is a double bead. I looked in different catalogs i.e., Rockler and found a couple, but the were 5/8 total width and the chair is exactly 1/2.

[videobear]

I think I would use the good leg as a pattern to make two completely new rear legs. That would avoid a visible repair.

[reible]

Unless there is some "other" value to the chair I'm not sure it is worth a repair. We picked up a small rocker for a grand daughter new at a furniture store for about $80.

Add the cost of a router bit you don't have and all the effort needed to do the repair, and the fact that it might not come apart cleanly and it seems to me a new chair is a better deal. That of course is up to those involved.

You might want to price bits but in general I find this place as one of the cheaper places with at least decent cutters:

https://www.mlcswoodworking.com

They also have a pretty large collection so you might find what you are looking for???

Ed

[rcplaneguy]

Just watched a video of using a single bead bit, running the wood through twice to get a similar result.