armchair woes

[cimorene]

The wooden legs are held onto my beloved armchair with these screws that stick down out of the frame. The legs are solid but kind of soft, and they came with little holes drilled in them and the screws just went straight into these holes. Predictably enough, I suppose, after a couple of years the holes are stripped - although maybe not [maybe not predictably I mean] because Wax's chair is fine - and one of the legs just falls off completely if you lift the chair a tiny bit. The others aren't remotely stable either though. They won't stay in place, are always turning around to tilt at unfortunate angles, and the chair rocks every time I stand up, sit down, or shift my weight at all. Okay, obviously I need to buy some more legs. But it would be nice if there were a solution that didn't involve hard metal and extremely soft wood. Like, something more permanent.

Comments

[anglepoiselamp]

That happened to my old bed. One leg just suddenly fell off - luckily when I was making the bed, not when I was sleeping in it. Couldn't be properly reattached because the drill hole was too worn. Ever since I've been very wary of any piece of furniture assembled that same way. :/

[pocketmouse]

There's several ways to fix this, without having to replace the legs.

- Remove the screws, bore out the hole a little, and plug it up with a small dowel plus wood glue.
- Bracket in additional screws -- up and at an angle. You might need longer screws than the original screws for this, and you might want to drill pilot holes (the predrilled holes you mentioned). The key with pilot holes is that you don't want the hole to be wider than the shaft of the screw (the unthreaded part).
- Bracket irons, which come in several different shapes, but would drill screws parallel to each other and to the floor. Kind of like a staple.
- You could also try just using a larger gauge screw in the existing, worn-out holes. A thicker shank, so it'll bite into the remaining wood.

I'd say go to a hardware store and ask a couple questions, describe the problem. They should be able to help you find a good solution with only a couple pieces of hardware.

[cesare]

All good advice. There are also plastic screw anchors that can be screwed into a hole that's gotten too loose, and then the metal screw... screws... into the plastic anchor. Though I'm not sure, the plastic anchors might just be for walls. Worth asking though.

[buddleia]

*points up* what they said, except I am a bit less professional and would have used split matches and wood glue to wedge the drill holes.