Looking for Repair Advice

[zdorsch]

Front View

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Rear view

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Hi all,

I have tried to repair this wooden "wall" before, but the joints recently failed (I call this a wall because it sits in front of the first pew in the chapel and holds the kneelers).

The joints have failed where the stile meets the rail on both the botoom and top rails. Most of the force on this wall is from the top from people grabbing it as a handle to stand up or a resting place to sit.

My thought is to remove about an inch from the bottom rail and then fasten this to a board mounted to the floor and sandwiched between the two outside stiles. And then run dowels up from through the bottom plate and through the rail into the middle stiles. Or should I add more support to the top somehow?

Thanks for any advice!

Zach

 

[Gotcha6]

The only thing I can think to do would be to bore 2 holes in the pilasters 2-3" from the bottom and cross bore another to intersect it inside with a forstner bit. Using a concrete expansion anchor, locate it under the holes (1 pair at each support column) and a draw nut configuration.. Try and visualize a bed rail bolt assembly turned on its end, or like the assemblies used to tie together counter tops in the corners. I think the stress is being caused by the fact that the angle brackets you see on the front of the wall are holding the rail to the floor while there is no other supporting member to do so. Consequently, it remains in place and when the people pull back they try and loosen the joint. Are the front & back of the walls independent? Is there a cavity between them?. You may try a furniture lag assembly into the concrete with another in the top cap. A turn buckle & threaded rod between them should maintain tension. Then remove the angle braces on the front and let the bottom rail float as it should.

 

[Joe Scharle]

What's the difference between these kneelers and the rows behind?

Ours are screwed into the floor as well as the back of the pew ahead.

 

[Gotcha6]

I don't think the issue is the kneelers, rather the wall. In the pews behind, the people will use the bench in front to get up. On the front row, the wall doesn't have the depth to warrant this loading.

 

[ehpoole]

Provided the tenons are suitably long, I would think that pinning each tenon (with a dowel) after regluing the rails and stiles would greatly increase their resistance to joint seperation. I would also exploit the fact that the side pieces are solid and extend the full length for the lower rail to the upper rail -- securing the rails to these full-length sides will also provide extra support to prevent the rails and stiles from seperating by holding the rails in compression relative to stiles.

I, too, am a bit concerned by the added corner braces. If this piece had been properly designed for the loads placed on it, they should never have been necessary (not to mention they detract from it visually). I see why they were added to prevent the 'wall' from toppling over, but it should have provided proper support and attachment points from the get-go, not as a hack. I would look into a means to secure this 'wall' to the floor by way of the full-length side panels, which -- as a solid piece -- should both prevent this 'wall' from toppling while also preventing it from being pulled apart.

Just my 2 cents. YMMV

 

[zdorsch]

Dennis,

The wall is built like a cabinet door. I would guess the stiles to be about 3/4" to 1" thick, but I haven't measured yet because I need to remove the entire wall from the floor. The panels in between the rails and stiles are very thin pieces of oak edge glued together (I don't think that they're plywood).

The bottoms of the pilasters are screwed in from underneath. I like your idea of using that to support the rest of the wall; I had never thought about allowing the middle portion of the wall to float. Do you think adding a 1" x 6" piece of oak from pilaster to pilaster underneath the wall would add more rigidity or would that be overkill?

Joe,

Dennis has it correct, the kneelers are attached to the "wall" which is used to separate the pews from the front aisle.

Ethan,

The corner braces were added as a band-aid fix. The pews were orginally from a church that was destroyed during hurricane Hugo. The destroyed church then donated the pews to the current church, a campus ministry center and were retrofitted rather poorly. For example, many of the kneelers had screws that are 1/4" too long (which I have since changed to avoid bruised knees) and the pews were assembled with the minimum amount of replacement screws.

Would you think building out the pillasters on the inside and then screwing this to the floor as Dennis mentioned would do more to secure the structure?

Thanks guys!

I'm trying to fix this during one of the down-times since the chapel is used daily except for univeristy breaks.

Zach

 

[ehpoole]

If I understand, you're proposing bolting a board (say 1-1/2" to 2" thick) to the floor, then toe-nailing (or pocket-screwing most likely) what you all are referring to as "pilasters" into this board -- then yes that would work as an attachment means. You could also skip the full lenth board and just bolt some wooden attachment blocks to the bottom of each side piece ("pilaster"), then bolt that to the floor. I would make this block close to full length so your 2 (or 3) bolts can be as close to the front and rear as possible for maximum stability and resistance to torquing. You really need to just bolt each of the side pieces ("pilasters") to the floor, a full-length board isn't really necessary since the rear rail does not need to be tied to the floor (and ideally should not be IMHO).

As mentioned in my earlier post, I would also suggest taking advantage of the fact that the side pieces/pilasters extend from rail to rail and either nail, screw, or dowel them to the top and bottom rails to help ensure that the rails never again seperate from the stiles. And, of course, get rid of the angle braces along the bottom rail that were responsible for tearing the piece apart in the first place.

PS - If you don't (or can't) fully disassemble these kneelers to reglue the M&T joints, invest in a glue syringe (you can buy a really nice -- and reusable -- syringe from Woodcraft) with a 1/32" tip. You can then drill some 1/16" holes that intersect each mortise in several locations and then inject the glue and tap the joint tight with a mallet -- clamp if needed/possible. Between joints, immerse the syringe tip in a cup of water to keep the [water based] glue from curing and clogging the tip. This technique works reasonably well when presented with joints that need regluing but which can not practically be disassembled first.

Hope this helps.