Wednesday, December 23, 2015

Will Gorilla Glue do the trick?

I have a large round oak dining room table with a matching corner cupboard and eight chairs, two of which are arm chairs.  Over the years I've been very satisfied with the looks and functionality of this set, with one exception. One of the chairs has a leg that keeps coming detached from its cross brace. The end of the brace pops out of the leg. Since we bought this furniture from a furniture outlet in South Carolina, sending the chair back never seemed like an option.  Over the years I've tried many approaches to dealing with this chair - various kinds of glues, braces - I even took it to a furniture repair specialist who said he couldn't fix it.  I've had the best success tucking it away in the corner of my bedroom and using it as a clothes rack. But on  Christmas day I will be entertaining 10 people in my apartment and I need seating.  So yesterday I bought myself a bottle of Gorilla Glue (the commercial looked convincing) and today I carefully followed the directions and glued my chair. I wet one area, spread the glue smoothly over the other part and shoved them together. The last part of the instructions had me puzzled for a while.  It said to put a heavy weight on or clamp together the two parts and keep the pressure on for at least two hours.  Well I knew I didn't have a clamp so I went looking for a heavy weight that I could balance over the chair legs while the chair is lying face down on the floor.  Finally I decided on my vacuum cleaner which is pretty heavy.  It is now lying over the back legs of the chair and appears to be exerting the necessary pressure. I'm not going to touch anything until morning.  A couple of the men who will be here on Christmas day are pretty hefty so it may get a real test.  The tension mounts - but will it hold? Hey, I take my drama where I can find it.

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