Jump to the update for biscuits

"If you're going to wash them, don't use too much heat" she said, "or else they might fray." It was advice from my craigslistee that I would immediately disregard. I had rented a uhaul and rearranged my Saturday around this encounter. I have only ever been to Foster City to buy things off Craigslist, and this time was no different. This time it was a table and chairs: ten of them. This woman had apparently had a large family, but was now purging a very empty nest. The table was wonderfully large, as it would need to be to not seem out of scale in my apartment. The chairs, though numerous, were less than pristine. I'd whittled the price down to 80 by the time we parted ways, and they were worth ever bit of whittling. I knew when I got them home I'd immediately strip off the removable covers and wash them with the highest heat my washing machine could muster.

Sadly, several of the chairs also had a bit of a wobble. Being handy, I figured a simple tightening of the screws would suffice. Unfortunately, some well-intentioned repair-person had beaten me to the punch. It seemed their solution was to add more screws rather than tighten the ones already there. Not only did this tear up and weaken the wood, but it also PREVENTED the bolts from effectively tightening, since the threads of the screws held the leg joint apart and loose. Most of my repairs would consist of undoing the previous "repairs." One chair might even be too far gone. I've set it aside.

Meanwhile, the covers had finished cleaning and I dressed up the chairs. Red's not my first choice, but it could certainly be worse. I'll consider dying the covers down the road. After hefting a very heavy table up a VERY tricky flight of stairs (hat tip of gratitude to my roommate for his help), I brought the chairs up and placed them thusly. As the poor soul who sleeps below this level, I'm all too aware of how noisy the top floor can be. In my book, soft padding should be an obligatory feature of all movable furniture. With the chair pads peeled and stuck, I placed each chair (very silently) at the table. At long last, we have a dining table! I'm now eagerly soliciting creative suggestions to keep cats at bay.

UPDATE

Believe it or not, I have more to say on the subject of repairing Ikea Chairs! You'll recall that one chair was set aside. It's leg-seat attachment was far too chewed up to get a rigid joint with the bolt and dowel system of the chair's design. So, donning my well-intention-ed amateur repairmen hat, I thought I'd try one more thing to repair it: biscuits!

This small, football-shaped piece of wood is a biscuit. To make a joint with it requires a special gadget called a biscuit joiner, which I'd borrowed for another project I'm doing. I've never used a biscuit joiner before, so this seemed like a perfect opportunity to try it out. Essentially, the joiner is just a small hand held circular saw blade that cuts a groove at an exact, tool-defined location on each of the two pieces to be joined. To make sure the joints lined up, I was also measuring out the center of the joint on each piece. This proved only somewhat helpful because, as I found out, the tool kicks a bit. I was foolishly trying to work on a poorly clamped piece, so of course the blade was quite able to push the wood out of alignment. I'm hoping the inherit wiggle room of the joint will help me make it work.

The biscuit is football shaped to fit in the two grooves in the pieces being joined. The biscuit is meant to absorb the glue and swell to fill the groove creating a tight connection when the glue dries. With that knowledge in mind, I was quite liberal with the glue. It took quite a bit of prying and pressing to get the leg to match up with both notches when they were at a 90 degree to each other. Once I did get the joint together, I clamped the joint as best as I could to keep the joint tight. When the glue tried, the chair seemed to be pretty well solid, though there's always a part of me that won't trust glue to carry much weight. Maybe I'll keep this chair in an unpopular corner of the table.