Craft · 6 pages · 12 min

Why a chair fails at the joint

A chair usually breaks where a rail meets a leg, because sitting racks that joint harder than it loads the middle of the wood.

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From the opening

The legs and rails of a chair meet in joints, often a mortise and tenon or a set of dowels, held by glue and sometimes a wedge. Those joints, not the middle of a stout leg, are where racking from sitting first opens the frame. The opening covers racking levers the tenon, shoulders open before the wood, and end grain glues poorly.

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Inside

Racking levers the tenon
Shoulders open before the wood
End grain glues poorly
Members often outlast the joint
Where the idea stops applying
A distinction worth keeping

Sources

Mortise and tenon racking
Chair frame joint failure

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Why a chair fails at the joint

From the opening

Inside

Sources

Also on the desk