Oak public school chair

I found this little guy in the school district dumpster that’s a regular haunt of mine. The orange paint seems to want to come off extremely easily but it has other issues that need attention as well. Its a little weak in the knees and the whole think wobbles pretty fiercely. Only one of the lower support spans is missing though and overall theres no structural damage. This looks like a good candidate for a complete tear down.

 

With some careful pressure, a mallet, a 5 in 1 and plenty of wiggling I managed to pull it all apart. I made sure to label all the joints so that I can assemble it the exact same way it came apart.

Once everything easy is apart I asses whether to take the back apart as well, because Im lazy and cautious I dont want to take it apart if I dont have t. However because its pretty wobbly and the paint will come off easier if its apart I go ahead and take the mallet to it.

I finally had enough bad weather to get a little work done on the orange. I finished sanding the back, careful not to remove my markings.

I actually gave up on hand sanding and on my ancient sheet sanders that I got at garage sales for $5. I dropped $60 on a new Porter Cable 3 amp random orbital sander. Lets just say “I LOVE THE FUTURE” it took me 20 minutes to do the same amount of sanding I had accomplished in an hour. Once I had double checked that all my pieces were in the right place I applied some Samurai glue in all the dowel peg holes. I like the new expanding poly glues because they have a little elasticity, they fill voids as they cure and they stick to everything except silicone. Of course theyre expensive theyre more likely to dry up in a half used bottle, and the bottles themselves are a pain in the ass to squeeze glue out of.

I still tend to use good old wood glue if im working on something antique though because if it needs to be repaired again in the next milenium it will come apart.

Once fitted together everything was pretty tight so I tenderly used the mallet to set it all the way together. I then clamp using my ratchet strap. I only see a tiny bit of glue seep so far, I was pretty conservative with it knowing that it will spew everywhere if over applied. Its super easy to sand off when dry though so Im not worried.

Now that im done sanding I check the stability of the rest of the dowels and decide to make a new lower support span.

I dont have any scrap oak but I do have a bunch of old maple flooring. I find a piece big enough and whittle out a new spar. I have to be careful to match the odd angle where it seats into the back leg.

Once its right I sand em both down and I’m ready to assemble the whole thing.

OK now Iv’e glued everything and screwed in the blocks and seat pan. Next ill stain it a nice dark nut brown.