Pine Table - Broken Fixing

[bigalxyz]

Pine dressing table and one of the legs was wobbly. There’s a bracket/fixing/whatever that holds each leg in place, and one of them has broken. See photos below. The square bit screws to the underside of a lower shelf and the round end fits into a hole in the table leg.

Is this some kind of standard item that I could buy cheaply? The table is nice, but quite old and not especially valuable so if I need some kind of bespoke replacement I don’t think it’s going to be worthwhile - but if I can buy one for a fiver from Wickes, eBay, etc. then I might be tempted.

alternatively is a repair feasible with 2 part filler, epoxy putty or similar? Or a bit of dowelling? Or ask my mate with the 3D printer if he could produce a plastic copy?

thank you.

 

[Burnerman]

Can you give us another shot of the table underside, do you think? Possibly another length of timber with a dowel peg could be suitable but we need to see the thing in context.
John

 

[bigalxyz]

Hi John,

Another 2 photos attached - does that help? Shows the underside of the lower shelf with the 3 good joints/brackets/whatevertheyarecalled in place. Each of these slots into a hole in the leg about 6 inches above the floor.

Thank you.
Alan.

 

[Burnerman]

Yes, excellent pics, thanks!
Quite a difficult piece to fabricate really - depending on what tools you have - although it could be possible to glue a length of dowel into the end of the square timber.
Personally I’d think hard about repairing the original part with a quality wood glue, binding it tight and leaving it for a couple of days to completely cure.....are all the bits there?
I guess that part of the supports are visible so at least the original piece would look right.
John

 

[bigalxyz]

Thank you. I can still fit the broken bits together but would wood glue be strong enough to hold it? Could be a lot of weight going through a small glued join.

Dowel might work although again I'd be concerned about strength - about 6cm to span between the end of the square bit and the hole in the table leg. Would that be liable to snap?

 

[Burnerman]

A quality ramin dowel would be nicely strong, so long as it is drilled quite deeply into the square section and glued in place - how it would look though is debateable.
Its also possible to reinforce the repaired piece with some smaller dowel drilled down the middle, if you get my drift?
The original piece would have been turned on a lathe and certainly would be difficult to match without such a machine.
I think I’d try to repair the original timber with cascamite glue or similar, and then drill down the middle and insert smaller dowel, as I mentioned before.
Lets see what the others come up with!
John

 

[bigalxyz]

Thanks John.

I shall investigate...

 

[lynchnigel]

Likewise as Burnerman suggested I think it would be hard to stick back really, because of the function of the part if you cut back to the square section, you might as well replace the whole part with a close grained hardwood as suggested.ramin,oak,ash,maple.
You could mark the new part to match, saw cut around and slowly chisel it to shape.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news .

 

[bigalxyz]

Well...after an almost two week delay thanks to the local post being up the spout, a little bit of 10mm dowel came in the post. I managed to drill a hole in the square section bit and gently tap the dowel inside with a bit of wood glue. I think it has worked! The hole is very slightly askew but I don’t think that’ll matter - there’s a little bit of play elsewhere so I’m sure it’ll still fit.

thanks everyone

 

[Burnerman]

Good job, and we appreciate the follow up!
Just for other similar jobs, a couple of saw cuts or sanded flats along the length of the dowel gives the glue somewhere to go rather than just jetting out.....you could also cover the exposed length with other larger diameter drilled dowel if you want.
John

 

[bigalxyz]

Ahhh good point about the glue having somewhere to go - sanding a flat bit would have been quite easy. It went over my hand instead.

thanks again