Remaking a Leg

by paintphone in Workshop > Furniture

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Remaking a Leg

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This Instructable shows how to remake a leg from a table or a vintage couch with silicon mold and fiberglass resin, possibilities are endless

The couch was bought with a broken leg with intentions to remake the leg to match the other front leg

This was all done at home in the driveway

The Mold

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I used a silicone 2 part 1 to 1 water based mix and mixed it up in a glass vase

put it on the leg in the glass vase propped with whatever i could find to meet my needs

let it set 12 min and then slipped off the mold

Cut the back into the silicon from the top of the leg and a bit of the bottom with a razor to carefully remove the mold from the leg then placed it bad into the vase to keep form

Casting the Leg

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I used bond brand Fiberglas resin from Canadian Tire. Its a 2 part mix with a catalyst hardener

Poured it into the glass vase with the silicon mold into it and let set

Then once hardend I removed the cast from the mold

and we have a replica of another leg

Drilling

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I drilled 3 inches into the resin cast leg and instead a threaded rod cut to the length I needed

Poured in some more resin in the negative space to make it stay in place

Did the same with the wood leg, drilled it out and used resin to hold it in place until the next step

Filling in the Void

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After all the resin has set up I used bondo brand short strand fiberglass mixed up and put in the space left from the wood leg to the cast

Used a plastic bag wrapped around the leg and the cast to make it more cylindrical as it sets up to make it easier to sand

Carving and Sanding

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I used a dremel with a diamond cutting disc to outline and make lines more deep

Then sanded with a 40 grit to shape it better

Having the cast on the bottom and the original broken leg on top made it easier to sand the lines in between

Downloads

Final Sanding and Paint

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Finished my sanding and then painted it with a gold spray paint close to the original colour

Good to go