Rocking chair repair continues with seat

[JimReed@Tallahassee]

Short summary is that I acquired four rockers that were put on the curb by my neighbor. The previous posts showed how I made a dowel to repair the broken leg. Now I have turned to the seats.

I removed the woven cane and dropped the seat. It was held in place by four screws and came out easy. The cane was a big mess.



I am sure the engineers specified something and then the big wigs decided that corrugated fasteners were just fine. I can assure them that metal corrugated fasteners were the worst choice they could have made. There is lots of rusting and wood damage--otherwise, the wood is in great shape.



It took about a half hour of coaxing to remove the fastener pieces. Looks like I need to make some Dutchmen to repair the punky wood.



This patching may take a while. When it is done, I think wooden dowel fasteners would stand up better to the elements.

[Phil S.]

Jim -

I'd be inclined to use the old pieces for patterns and replace the whole works rather than fit a Dutchman. Seems like it would make a better repair and be less work.

Phil

[cputnam]

Phil S. said:

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Jim -

I'd be inclined to use the old pieces for patterns and replace the whole works rather than fit a Dutchman. Seems like it would make a better repair and be less work.

Phil

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What he said. Failing that, I'd go for a square loose tenon because the nature of a dowel is to focus force at a point.

[JimReed@Tallahassee]

Thanks for the tips. My brain was in patch mode. Now I am thinking replacements because there are four identical chairs.

[Phil S.]

Heck Jim, as long as I talked you into that have you considered putting a woven seat on these chairs. Something like this would look real nice-



Instructions for one method here

Phil

[JimReed@Tallahassee]

Phil S. said:

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Heck Jim, as long as I talked you into that have you considered putting a woven seat on these chairs. Something like this would look real nice-



Instructions for one method here

Phil

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I really want to salvage the backs for a few years. Mismatched seat/back might be unsettling.? or not?

[Phil S.]

Jim-

I went back and looked at your other thread to refresh my memory of your chair back. I can't see it well enough to get much of an impression whether a woven seat would look odd or not. My memory tells me you were thinking of replacing the seat with a plywood one (but take that for what it's worth). Plywood won't be a match either. Looks like either way you'll be refinishing the whole chair and the new finish may pull the whole works together. I'd prefer a mismatched woven seat to a mismatched plywood one, but it isn't my chair (chairs?). Seeing it is going to end up on your daughter's porch, maybe give her some options and let her issue your marching orders.

VanDykes has some other possibles for you to consider, too.

http://search.vandykes.com/search?view=g...chair+seat

I'm redoing some chairs that had plywood seats with holes drilled through them in a pattern. Thought about going with leather or fiber seats, but when I pulled the old delaminated seats off I found the original was machine cane so went with that instead.

Phil