Today we’ve a second hand knock down furniture table in the workshop. Knock down furniture is a term used for ready to assemble furniture. The problem we have with this table is that some of the ‘bolts’ that connect the legs to the top have stripped out and been lost. These bolts are known as machine to wood screws. Here’s a picture of one. You’ll note that the left hand end has a coarse thread for inserting into the wood and the righthand end a fine thread to take a bolt.
The gist of the repair is to drill the holes deeper, rethread the deeper hole then screw ’n’ glue new threaded rods in. In the next picture the drill has been taped to indicate the depth of hole required. Also, in chalk, marked on the leg is an alignment mark and depth indicator to assist with drilling the correct angle.
Once drilled the deepened hole is threaded with a conventional 8mm metal worker’s tap. Rather conveniently a tapping tool works equally well in timber as it does in metal as it was originally designed to do.
Araldite is a two part epoxy resin (essentially a glue) was mixed to cement the 8mm bolts in position.
This picture shows one bolt in position. The thin wedge device is used to deposit Aradite deep into the hole.
Here are two bolts in position waiting to be sawn to length.
And this is the final result with new nuts and washers. Ready to be bolted back onto the table from which it came.
