Fixing a wobbly chair one way or another

Chair Doctor Pro Glue includes an applicator syringe and three needles in varying sizes for injecting glue into loose joints.

Chairs get loose over the years, and who can blame them. Torque and friction take their toll. Just ask anyone who's married.

But why wait for a heavyset pre-teen to flatten a loose-runged dining room chair in front of judgmental relatives? Actually, that would be funny. Better than it happening to a portly older relative. Especially if you owe them money.

Now, there are two ways to fix a wobbly chair. My way, or the efficient way. My way means dismantling your rickety chair lovingly, piece by piece, flossing its nooks and crannies, and reassembling it. My way is quite Zen.

But Zen takes forever, so you may opt for the high-speed alternative. This means simply using a Canadian miracle product, which fixes your chair in no time, with no trouble, and no mess.

But I'm torn here, because if you're a person who enjoys the sheer futility of doing things the hard way, I don't want to spoil your fun. Besides, we boneheads have to stick together.

So let's talk about my way first.

Mag's Way - Tools and Supplies

• Rubber mallet
• Various scrapers
• Sandpaper
• Steel wool
• Pocketknife
• Safety glasses
• Shavings and/or sawdust
• Carpenter's glue
• Cotton swabs
• Clamps or surgical tubing
• Vinegar

Older furniture is put together with glue made from animal hides. Hide glue crystallizes as it ages, and it's unable to flex when the joint expands and contracts with humidity changes and weight-bearing duties. So the glue ends up failing, and that's when the chair gets shaky.

To fix the unsteady joint, you can remove the hide glue and replace it with modern flexible wood glue, composed of (ALERT!! GREAT CONVERSATION STARTER) long chain polymers that crosslink to form a strong, supple bond. (RESEARCH SHOWS HIGHER DATING SCORES FOR SINGLE PEOPLE WHO CAN USE THE WORDS CROSSLINK, SUPPLE AND BOND IN ONE SENTENCE.) Getting rid of old crystallized hide glue can be tricky. Even though a joint is miserably unstable, the pieces may not come apart when you reef on them.

The good news is that hide glue is water-soluble. So you can soak the joints apart by packing wet rags around them. Once the water seeps into the joint, the glue dissolves and you're on your way. Hopefully. Unless you got everything too wet and the wood swells and now it's really stuck. In which case, try aiming a hairdryer at the joint for a minute, and see if the heat helps lube things up. Or boil a kettle underneath the trouble spot and hope the steam loosens it. Or try squirting a little vinegar into the joint to dissolve the old glue. See how much fun this is? Why cheat yourself by falling back on a simple, easy alternative?

Okay, next, using a rubber mallet (or a hammer covered with a thick cloth), tap the pieces apart. It's helpful to clamp the frame of the chair in a vise so you're not chasing it around. Work back and forth from one side of the frame to the other so you don't rack the frame, causing the joints to bind. If you're really having a struggle, a car jack works, and I'm not even kidding.

When you get the chair apart, scrape and sand all the exposed joints, including the mortises (holes). It's really important to get down to bare wood. That's the only way you'll get a good new bond. If you leave any old glue, the new glue will just be glued to the old glue, not to the wood. But remember, the old glue is crummy and it'll just let go of the new glue and the joints will get loose all over again. And if that's not hell on a bun, I don't know what is.

When you've removed all the old glue, try dry-fitting the joints together. They're likely to be even looser now that all the glue is gone. For small gaps, try Lee Valley's Cabinet Maker's Glue, which is composed of 45% solids so it has great gap-filling properties. You can also try adding your own filler (i.e.sawdust) to regular carpenter's glue. If you have generous gaps to fill, steal a shaving from the potpourri bowl and wrap it around the end of the rung, gluing it in place before insertion. Or, if you've got a huge gap, you can shove toothpicks into the joint to tighten things up.

Clamp the freshly glued joints in place using standard clamps, surgical tubing, or even an old plastic skipping rope. Leave the chair in peace overnight to give the glue a chance to cure nicely.

Now, if my way doesn't sound like the BEST Saturday afternoon ever, you can try this simple, efficient, inexpensive alternative:

Buy Chair Doctor Pro Glue ($10, Lee Valley Tools, www.leevalley.com), which includes an applicator syringe and three needles in varying sizes for injecting glue into loose joints. The glue is quite runny, so it penetrates the narrowest gaps, then wicks into the end-grain of the wood and swells the wood fibres. As the glue cures, it dries hard inside the cells of the wood, freezing the fibres in that swollen state, and hence, you're left with lovely, permanent, tight joints.

Okay I admit Chair Doctor registers very high on the Oh Baby scale. So, whichever way you choose, if you're living with loose, potentially deadly chairs, this could be your favourite weekend.