Weekly update 28.02.2016

A bit of a diversion from the house renovation this week... This dressing stool was in need of a bit of TLC.

One of the legs had split lengthwise, forced apart by its fixing.

Each leg affixes to the stool frame by means of a length of studding. Half of the stud is screwed into the leg and the other half passes through the frame and is secured by a wing nut on the inside.

At the top of each leg is a decorative beading. This is made from plastic and is stapled on.

The first task therefore was to carefully prise the beading away, exposing the damage to the leg.

I figured that if I routed a square channel down through the split, I could implant a piece of oak to provide a new sturdy mounting for the stud fixing.

So... with the leg firmly held in the vice, I carefully routed the channel, gradually increasing the width until the oak insert fitted snugly.

With the piece of oak inserted, I marked the contour of the leg onto it...

...then, using the jigsaw, I cut it slightly oversize.

I drilled a couple of small pilot holes right down through the oak and into the leg.

These were then drilled out to a diameter of 8mm from the other side, allowing me to insert a couple of short dowels.

All parts were then liberally coated with PVA adhesive before assembly and the whole lot firmly clamped together and left overnight to set.

I was then able to trim off the excess oak using a guided router bit to follow the contour of the original leg.

The biggest challenge was to re-cut the angled channel at 45 degrees to fit the corner of the frame. I started by using the multi-tool to roughly cut away the majority of the excess, then a combination of the router and good old fashioned chisel to get it into shape. I then applied 2 part wood filler to all the joins and sanded it to a smooth finish. The hole for the stud fixing was marked and drilled at this stage.

A quick test to ensure it fits the frame...

Before re-fitting the decorative beading, I noted that one of the other legs had part of its beading missing. So, taking the good piece of beading, I pressed it into a lump of modelling clay to make an imprint and left the clay to partially dry out overnight.

Once the surface of the clay was set hard, I pressed in some 2 part wood filler, ensuring that it was worked well into all the crevices. After about 15 minutes, when set, I broke away the clay and cleaned up the plastic copy.

This obviously had a lot of excess plastic filler on the back, so I gradually ground this away using the bench grinder.

Finishing off with a piece of sandpaper, this was the result.

All that was required now was to trim it to length and glue it to the leg using high viscosity cyanoacrylate.

The stool had several thick layers of paint which had built up over the years...

...so I decided to strip all parts right back to bare wood ready for repainting.

I gave all parts a couple of coats of acrylic primer, followed by a topcoat of quick-dry satinwood.

Jacqui stripped the cushion and cleaned the cover before re-stapling it to the seat base.  Good as new!

Meanwhile, I haven't neglected work on the house this week... I've now replaced the worst of the floorboards in bedroom 1 with 22mm sheet chipboard.  After packing out the gaps below the plaster with scraps of timber, I fitted the skirting boards using a combination of screws and grab adhesive.

The screw holes and joints have been filled with wood filler.