Alternative Joinery

A couple of years ago, my wife asked me to take a look at one of her father’s chairs that had loosened up a little. I was not really looking forward to fixing a 30-year-old chair, especially one with little merit other than the fact that it was my father-in-law’s, but agreed to take a look at it and ‘see what I could do’. I brought it in to the shop and was startled to find that all four legs were attached with bolts running through the corner blocks to a threaded insert in the legs. The corner blocks were simply glued and screwed to the chair rails. This was fairly basic knock-down technology, but the chair had been in daily use for decades and it only needed a half turn with a wrench to tighten it up as good as new. A project I had dreaded turned into a significant lesson learned. I don’t use this approach on my regular chairs, but I find it a great method for putting together prototypes in a hurry, and in some unusual situations it has added some terrific reinforcement to otherwise difficult joints.

The leg isn't glued on, it's just bolted on through the corner block