Breaking Acacia Wood Chairs - How to Repair Breaks | Woodworking
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- Опубліковано 13 чер 2024
- There are a number of furniture pieces that have come through my workshop that shouldn't have broken. This pair of chairs are examples of that. They're made from Acacia wood. This is part of a trend I'm seeing in my furniture repair shop recently as I repair imported furniture.
I show how to repair one of these chairs, while the other one with a broken arm is shown step-by-step on Instagram - see / wooden_it_be_nice_canada
Broken wood that is glued properly, and "properly" being a the key word, is stronger on the glue joint than the wood itself. You can see evidence of that in our glue video - / wooden_it_be_nice_canada The repair for this broken chair starts with gluing up the two broken parts that separated. Once those are dry, the chair is disassembled so the structure can be reinforced to prevent it from breaking again.
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This video is hosted by Scott Bennett, Owner of Wooden It Be Nice - Furniture Repair in Brooklin, Ontario, Canada. WoodenItBeNice.ca
#furniture #repair #woodworking - Навчання та стиль
How can it be the FIRST time you have seen this and still be a TREND that you have seen?
Great video again I have learned a lot
Was able to repair two drawers on my wife's antic cabinet. Thanks to your video I have watched.
That's awesome! It makes me happy to hear you've had success from watching our videos. Your comment made my day! Thanks. Scott
I'm glad to see the extra effort to make the repair better than the original! This should be the approach to any repair where the original condition was clearly not up to the challenge... all too often the case in anything made to a price rather than to a need.
Thanks. Yes, there's not much point in putting something back together that was poorly built to begin with . Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Scott
Thanks for the lesson. I will use this technique to repair my grandmother's early 20th century rocker.
Fantastic repair
Thank you very much. Scott
Stumbled across this looking to see how others repaired this issue. I'd never seen a break like it before. unfortunately its an occasional chair so theres additional layers of padding and fabric I can't really remove, but I think your I'll be able to use your technique! thanks for the vid, you have a new follower and subscriber!
That was one great video, Thank's for the share and Stay Safe !!!.
Thank you Brian. Glad you enjoyed it! Stay safe too. Scott
Thanks Scott, very informative :)
Glad it was helpful! Scott
Thanks for the video. You mentioned how fibrous spruce is. I recently read that spruce was used in the construction of wooden airplanes not just because of its “springy” strength and light weight and straight grain, but because that “fibrous” nature made it more resilient to bullet holes.
Hi Scott, Acacia is quite a common wood for use in furniture making in Australia (think Tasmanian Blackwood, Gidgee), they are incredibly tough and durable. Gidgee is even used by plane makers for the soles of planes it’s that tough. Maybe the problem is that the timber may be labelled as Acacia when it isn’t or that the Acacias in Asia are different or indeed they may be plantation grown and have grown too quickly. Anyway just thought I would let you know that Australian Acacias are beautiful, strong and expensive! Cheers from Australia
Thank you Jenny. That's helpful to understand. I will have to look into Acacia more to figure out where these problems are coming from. Thanks. Scott
I think there is a big naming problem particularly with imports. For example there are different types of pine which have different qualities. Some are good (or reasonable) for furniture and some are not but are good for framing. There's different oaks, ashes, cedars and merrantis etc. Some are good for one purpose but not another. A quick look at Wiki and I see about 100 different acacias. On the other hand there are only two different jarrahs and I can't tell them apart. So really it's a marketing problem. I had a lady very proudly tell me her outdoor tables and chairs were made from hardwood. It was western red cedar, a decorative timber. Yes, technically a hardwood, like balsa, but not a great chair or table wood which are subject to much different forces than a dresser or shelved unit.
@@FixingFurniture I also get a number of these types of pieces in my shop. I don't know a lot about acacia wood, nor can I tell what you are working with on this chair as there are no close up pics of it. Most of what I get in are made from a type of beech. Beech can be a reasonably good wood for this, but what I find is that modern forestry techniques have the trees growing so fast that there is no strength in the wood. Take a quick look at the grain lines to see how wide they are. This could be part of the problem. And of course, as you say the design is poor as well.
@@Goalsplus I am not an expert and could be wrong, but I thought that 1) eastern red cedar is a softwood and 2) is not a very expensive or hard wood but is often chosen for outdoor furniture due to its innate rot resistance. Please let me know if I have my facts wrong here - it can be hard to find good and accurate information online and (as you said) it can be a real mess trying to match names to species given there isn't good standardization and different woods labeled the same can have wildly different properties ("mahogany" in particular springs to mind).
@@benwake4823 you're correct. I should have said Australian red cedar which is a hardwood. So cedars can be softwoods and hardwoods. I suppose someone said it looks like cedar and the name stuck. As for the softwood varieties, yes, it's good in the weather, and some might disagree, but I don't think it makes good sitting furniture because the joints don't hold up. To expand, you wouldn't make a chair from balsa wood which is a genuine hardwood. And, yep, mahogany is a good example of a mix of woods with different qualities.
Good as always. Constantly learning new things here. Thanks.
That's awesome! It makes me so happy to hear that you're picking up skills from our videos... I love it! Thanks for sharing that Gary. Scott
Acacia is a fairly common wood here in the Philippines. I have about 9 acres on a hillside and we have many Acacia trees here. We occasionally use wood from these. As you have found, it can be brittle. But it is a fairly good wood for making things, just not good for use as chair legs or arms for that matter. We use it as a very strong wood with some color for framing out tables and benches and we do use it in a much thicker format so we do not run into the splitting issues as long as we keep it thick enough.
We also have a local wood, even harder and much less straight grained. I have no idea what the real tree name would be in English, but locally it is called Matamban. It is a fairly white wood and is dense to the point that in the green state, I am not sure it would float. I work with it a lot used for my work shop work benches. It is similar in density and hardness to Osage Orange but without the bright yellow color.
The Acacia is available because most countries have stopped allowing the teak and mahogany trees to be cut. We also have a fruit tree called Jack Fruit trees that make wood that is similar in color to the Osage Orange, a bright yellow color.... It is used in decorative shelving and on larger trees can be used for coffee tables...
Enjoyed the "outside the box" idea with the thin plywood to strengthen that corner joint. The back legs may break, but those two front legs are safe I think!!
Thanks for sharing that Lionel. It's great to hear what you experience where you live. I love to learn and I found this very interesting. Scott
Thank you for the education. I just accepted a job repairing a mahogany chair with a shallow angled break at on the front turned leg just below the stretcher. The cross section at the break is about 1 inch square. The grain in the leg is across the leg at the break. Someone attempted to glue the break with a polyurethane glue. I would like to install a 3/8 inch dowel. I am considering sawing across the leg below the original break to get a level drilling surface. I would use a clear epoxy to reassemble the cut off chip and the leg with the dowel in place. The leg is carved with a claw foot and a lot of curves. Is there a better way to do this?
Amazing work..I wood of never thot of dat....I wood of just screwed da legs back....great video thanx.
Glad it was helpful! Scott
Your videos are great thank you! You have a very calm voice and relaxed style of video, may suggest you change or remove the music it breaks the relaxed ongoing
Thanks for the feedback Gaston. I appreciate that. Scott 🇨🇦
Just came upon Acasia laminate boards here in Japan. To me, other color, same as pine. Light. I asked staff and they even said "softwood imported". Another person here mentionned Rubber wood and that looks almost identical but heavier. Being that rubberwood is so cheap in countries that produce rubber like Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, as rubber stops producing after 30 years so they raze whole plantations then sell the logs dirt cheap. If you are a furniture maker youd use rubberwood for sure. You know far more about hardwoods than I do so Acasia is possible I suppose. In countries like Thailand though they don't grow softwoods. Can't even find it at home centres. My wife is Thai so I've looked There is none because of termites. Homes build but avoid softwoods. You can bury a big ash underground and then use it 5 yrs later. Softwoods, if course, forget it.
Wow, that's interesting Adam. Since I published this video, I've seen a number of comments about Acacia woods and it turns out there are over 1,000 different species that vary greatly. I'm not sure though how to narrow down this brittle but heavy wood that I keep seeing in customer pieces. Scott
I would have been tempted to glue the offcuts, from when you cut the mitre, into the void left behind your plywood blocks. Or if necessary, made new prism-shaped pieces to go in there.
Who thought it would be a good idea to “inset” the “screw block/brace” into the sides of the seat? A 45 miter on each end of the block would leave the side “full strength”
Never mind, I see that you did that (whatever the angle needed to be, I noticed it may not have been a “square” seat
Good eye. Yes, the seat flares out at the front so the angles are not at 45 degrees. Scott
I'm here in Japan and while the domestic makers use only quality wood, makers tend to be custom artisans so pieces are very expensive. In fact, a Japanese lady I knew who bought a new house wanted to have Oak furniture so she sourced in Japan and then decided on a maker in Kentucky and even at that and the shipping across the globe, it was HALF the cost. So, its not hard to see the allure of cheap imports. Though I do wish importers would use better wood. People would pay a bit more like say Imported Oak. I bought a round dinner table 2 years ago. Already a leg broke off. Very similiar to that Acasia. Mystery wood. but judging by weight its not a hardwood.
Thanks for sharing that Adam. Scott
weight is not the best indicator of a hardwood. Poplar is a case in point. When dried very light in weight but is extremely strong and fiberous.
Do u guys sell those shirts u wear...???
No, we don't. These are our company shirts. Cheers. Scott
Looks to me like parawood, not acacia. Sometimes call rubberwood or Asian hardwood. At 2:38 when you took the piece off, it showed the grain, which looks an awful lot like rubberwood. Used a lot in "affordable" furniture.
Wow, that's helpful. I'll look into that further to understand it better. Thanks Jan. Scott
Yeah, I think you're probably right, which makes it kind of a mixed issue. The rubberwood comes from SE Asian plantation rubber trees that have outlived their latex production life (25-30 years). They're harvested and made into furniture, as the wood is hard, straight-grained, fairly easily worked, and takes finishes well. It's treated for rot and insect resistance, as it's otherwise susceptible. It's a "renewable" resource, as new trees are planted to begin the latex production cycle anew, and using it for furniture means it's not burned off (putting more CO2 into the atmosphere). And it has largely replaced use of some more threatened tropical hardwoods--also a good thing.
I wonder if the biggest problem here was unsuitable joinery techniques, rather than the wood itself? Inexpensive material got paired with cheap joinery to make cheap furniture. But I wonder if the material itself, handled more respectfully (and, unfortunately, more expensively) might lend itself to a decent product.
Would you not consider putting dowels in legs + stretchers?
Good question. Due to the cutout of the apron, and the fragility of the wood, I wouldn't trust dowels to hold this specific joint together. Adding stretchers isn't an option as this is part of a larger set of chairs. I hope that answers your question. Scott
@@FixingFurniture thank you very kind of you to answer
I use acid brushes. You can get them in a bag of 100 at Harbor Freight
Maybe rubberwood
Thanks Lori for the suggestion. Scott
It makes me crazy when I see people buying imported crap when auctions and Craig's list are full of older sets in oak and mahogony that people don't want because it's "old".
Yes, it's unfortunate that this type of furniture is overlooked. On the up side, it keeps the prices low. Cheers. Scott
And adds to the growing landfills and wealth of manufactureres
I think its just natural for people to want NEW stuff. They want to be the first owners even though they are probably going to be the last owner (re: they will bring it to the landfill or it will eventually be used in the daughters first apartment , screws holding it together and all)
Adam Turnbull it is surprising to see most people not knowing wood from plywood or even mdf. Let alone the structural integrity of joints (dovetails / mortis vs screws and flat box furniture).
Look folks, Chineseium metal in tools, now chineseium wood. Krapola? LOL
I've had a few people comment on this type of wood, and it's a mystery to nail down exactly what it is... not for furniture making. Scott
I see a lot of this junk, because I fix a lot of this junk.
I call it junglewood.
Thanks for sharing that. I'll look that up. Scott
Probably some form of rubberwood. Heavy but lacking toughness like maple, birch or oak. (Junglewood is my slang for it. It's basically a used up rubber tree.
I have no respect for it) @@FixingFurniture
The design of this chair is all kinds of wrong. Everything about it.