Repairing raw timber piece

[mrfluffy]

Hi there,

I recently purchased a fairly unique piece of burr elm, with the intention of making it into a coffee table-

[

Untitled

• mrfluffy
• 23 Sep 2010
• 1

Unfortunately, when it arrived, the careful carrier company had turned it into this-

Untitled

• mrfluffy
• 23 Sep 2010
• 1

Now, I was planning to make a glass or epoxy top for this to show the hollow centre, so any repair work would have to be done from the underneath. Any ideas or tips, or do I simply have a pile of very expensive firewood?

 

[Deluks]

Had it been seasoned? If it's relatively fresh then it may just have fallen apart by itself.

There's no reason you can't use it in it's 'exploded diagram' state. If you use a glass top and resin fix each section to it individually.

If you want it to appear in it's original 'one piece' state then a few dowels on each section to keep it aligned and just rely on the fixing to the tabletop to hold it all together (again, epoxy resin would work) Dowels could prolly be 12mm hardwood or 10mm threaded bar.

 

[mrfluffy]

Yep, it's been air dried for about 6 or 7 years. I like the idea of the "exploded diagram" though, will have to experiment with the pieces

Any tips on lining up dowel holes on the adjacent faces? Getting a flush fit of the pieces would require them to be pretty exact, or would I drill one of the holes larger, and use a slow setting glue to give me some leeway?

 

[Deluks]

Lay it upside down on a flat surface (like in the pic) drill holes in one piece, use a dowelling centre point in the holes and line up the two adjoining bits of table together.

Or bang a few panel pins into one section, snip off the heads and do the same thing. Withdraw the pins and you have holes in each section that can be drilled, and should line up.

 

[merlin50]

if you pin it, it will fall apart. I would fix it with steel underneath.

 

[big-all]

i would suggest you oversize the holes by 0.5mm[8.5mm hole 8mm dowel]
and you assemble all 3 dowels together 5mm at a time as you have 3 angles to deal with

if you dowels are normal tight fit you may get it going together unevenly and straining and maybe breaking more bits off you have the added problem that normaly you can protect with a wooden block and tap the parts home here you cant
also use wood glue thats been in a warm room for hours and not in your cold shed to reduce the viscosity[thickness]

 

[mrfluffy]

Many thanks for all your advice.

My plan is therefore-

Pin with 4" long steel threaded rods. The broken cross sections are about 2 inches wide by 3 inches deep. Would using 2 rods per section weaken the wood too much?

Would wood glue be adequate, or would Epoxy adhesive (Araldite slow cure) be better? I do like Deluks idea of the panel pin technique.

Apply steel fixing plates underneath the joins.

Build a framework to hold the legs rigid until I can get the top finished and pour a clear epoxy layer over the entire top of the table.

If that doesn't make it structurally sound, then I might have to put some spokes between the legs.

It's lucky I don't have any other major projects on at the moment

 

[Deluks]

If glued to the top with a proper resin it won't move. Dowels or no dowels.