How to Fix a Broken Chair Leg

Broken chair legs are so common! We see so many chairs tossed to the curb simply because the leg is broken. This I'ble just might put us out of the upcycling ‘business’. That's because if everyone knew how easy a chair leg is to fix, they’d never toss their broken chairs to the curb in the first place. And then we’d have nothing to blog about. Despite that, we’ll take our chances!

You may have a broken chair leg in your home right now. So before you toss it, today we’re showing you just how easy it is to fix. We’ll give you all our tips and tricks!

Pipe Clamp

Countersink Set

Minwax High Performance Wood Filler

320 grit sandpaper

Lepage Quick Dry Glue

Painter's Tape

Popsicle sticks

One of the dowels in the rung of this cute curb side rocker was completely broken. Although we're demonstrating on a vintage rocking chair, the repair principles work for any chair with a broken dowel.

You could take every piece apart just to replace the dowel, but why do that when there’s an easier and faster way!

Inspect the chair from all angles to determine what needs to be repaired. You may think you only have a broken dowel. However, on closer inspection, a screw in our curved rocker has also loosened over time as you see above. In this case, it’s a simple matter of tightening the screws with a screwdriver.

Take note of everything that needs attention and make all repairs at once. Especially if you intend to repaint the chair at some point, you don’t want to make repairs after completing the transformation!

For a fast and, more importantly, perfect repair it may be surprise you to learn you’ll need three different drill bits. First you’ll need a countersink to hide the head of the screw. Second is a drill bit that’s narrower than the shank of the screw. This one will be for the ‘pilot hole’ that goes through both the leg and the stretcher. Lastly you also need a drill bit that’s slightly wider than the shank of the screw (we’ll explain all the why's later).

Test the countersink bit in a scrap piece of wood to ensure that the head of a screw will be hidden. A perfect fit (last pic)!

In addition to adding a screw, it can't hurt to re-glue the joint. This step is optional, because the screw will be doing all the work.

If you do choose to glue, carefully use a utility knife to scrape away any old glue you can see. New glue will resist sticking to old glue. If you can, get into the space with a piece of sandpaper to remove any remaining glue.

Now use a C-clamp to help position the stretcher against the leg. Here’s a handy trick to get the stretcher positioned vertically in the centre of the leg. Use a popsicle stick(s) to help raise it until it’s at the perfect position.

First, drill the countersink in the centre of the leg (first pic). Again, ensure the counter sink is deep enough to accept the screw head, plus some additional space to cover the head with wood filler. We didn’t countersink deep enough on our first try to allow space for the filler, so had to go back in again.

Next, drill through the centre of the countersink hole with the second drill bit (last pic). It should go through the leg and right into the broken dowel in the stretcher. This effectively makes a pilot hole to guide the screw into the broken dowel.

This is Hub’s best kept secret, but now we’re sharing it with you! Switch to the third and last drill bit. Line it up with the chair leg, then use a piece of green tape to mark the depth of the leg. The marker will stop you short of drilling into the stretcher.

By drilling only into the leg, but not into the dowel at all, this will allow the screw to freely move through the leg without griping any of the wood. That is, until the threads of the screw come into contact with the stretcher – where the pilot hole was drilled. Then the thread of the screw will grip and pull the gap closed. If you miss this important step, you will find that the two pieces will never properly come together as tight as they can be. Try it for yourself and you will see.

Now that everything is drilled, the C-clamp has done its job to help to line things up. At this point you can remove the C-clamp. We’ll be using a pipe clamp a little later to support the repair as it dries after screwing and gluing.

Like a mentioned earlier, the screw is doing all the work. However, now’s the time to add some wood glue before inserting the screw, if you choose to do so. A glue syringe and some painters tape is needed for this step.

Tape off around the repair with painter's tape; that way you can just lift the tape when done to remove the excess glue. Then squeeze the glue into the gap.

Rotate the chair around to let gravity help the glue seep in as far as it can go.

You can also use something thin, like an old credit card, to help spread the glue deep into the joint.

Use two blocks of wood at either end to protect the chair from the pipe clamp. Tighten the pipe clamp against the blocks.

Then insert the long screw (preferably using an electric drill) to bring the gap together. If you’re using an electric drill, make sure it is fully charged. Ours died just before Hubs was able to finish tightening the screw – of course! He had to crank the last little bit with a hand screw driver. Not fun when you’re forcing two surfaces together!
Wipe away any excess glue that oozes out of the joint and remove the painters tape.

To hide the screw head we use this two-part wood filler by Minwax (Minwax High Performance Wood Filler). Mix equal parts. Work quickly since the mixture remains workable for about 10 minutes at room temperature. It was hot when we did this outside so have even less working time!

Use a putty knife to apply. To fill deep holes, spread on 1/8″ thin layers, one at a time, until the hole is filled. Slightly over-fill the countersink to allow for sanding down.

Leave clamped until the the wood filler dries.

Wait at least 30 minutes to sand the area over the screw head flush with the leg. We’re using 320 grit sandpaper here.

Once Minwax High Performance Wood Filler has hardened, it can then be painted (or stained).

In the time it took the wood filler to dry in the previous step, I started painting the chair with milk paint. But that's an I'ble for another day :).

Interested in more great tips on how to make furniture repairs? We’ve got a great tutorial on how to fix veneer that is lifting! There’s also this jewelry storage DIY that most people would’ve left in the garage. Then we rebuilt a drawer to make over this roadside rescue waterfall dresser.

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