Repairing joints on an old doll bunk bed

1. Daughter-in-law talked me into completely restoring her doll bed made by her grandfather. My bad!

2. The joints on the bed are very loose and needed to be tighten. Being a carpenter, he toenailed every joint using finishing nails in an adoc manner. Some joints are mortise and tendons, and the nail heads were covered with putty & painted over several times; therefore I could not see where or how to remove the nails. What a mess!!!

3. When I finally got it apart, I found the end grains of the tendons were rough cut so that only the hard grain will touch against the mortise(almost a MM loss between grains) and even the sides of the tendons are not tight enough to use glues like titebond III, etc.

4. So, how is the best way to tighten the mortises & tendons and also the other none mortise & tendon joints??? If I use wood filler to "fill-in" the gaps, I'm afraid the glue will not be sufficient to make a strong bond.

5. I have searched the web to find a glue & wood filler that are compatible enough to accomplished this, but with no avail.

6. Please, help me to find a solution as this doll bed has a lot of sentimental values to my DIL because of her deceased grandfather.

Thanks

Growingdimmer

 

2 part epoxy glue is a filler and glue. Not sure it would work for you. Are you going to paint? You maybe able to remake some of the pieces.

 

Tenons, my friend, not tendons.

You could try a glue that expands upon hardening like Gorilla Glue. On the other hand, that would also destroy the charm of the old hand-made joints.

 

How about some thin shims to thicken the walls of the mortises or some Durhams rock hard putty. The maybe a peg or screw through the mortise sides to secure the tenon.

 

Pictures of the joints would be very helpful.
Gorilla glue has very little strength when used to fill a loose joint. It expands to a weak foam in the gaps. Quite strong in a good-fitting joint, though.
The ONLY strong mortise & tenon is a TIGHT M&T. The old-school fix was to take thin shavings from a handplane and wrap them around the tenon until it fits tight in the socket, then apply wood glue thinly to the shavings and inside the socket & assemble. Check for square and clamp til set. If the tenons are long enough a cross-dowel might be some additional help.

If it was full-size furniture with large joints I would recommend a technique of using blind wedges on the ends of the tenon that expand to lock the tenon into the mortise when tapped home. This requires practice & skill (or luck) and would be risky on thin toy-sized components.

 

If the tenons are round, guy's suggestion for using shavings is a good one.

If the tenons are rectangular, same trick works but use pieces of veneer to glue onto the sides of the tenon. You want the sides of tenons to be snug but not too tight. The should be a little gap at the bottom of mortise so there is a little room for excess glue while still allowing the tenon to seat all the way in the mortise.

I dislike using epoxy to repair furniture unless it's throw-away furniture. Once repaired with epoxy there are few options for future repairs.

 

I'm guessing this is primarily for display thus not being used in a manner that would tend to damage it in the future. Given that I would also recommend the 2 part epoxy that pugsl suggested. I have repaired many items with it and it fills the gaps and adheres to wood very well. I've tested it and the wood ripped apart while the epoxy remained solid. They have 5 minute and 20 minute varieties for work time.

Note, I filled 120 holes in my Al boat, he used it as a duck blind, sanded and painted and not one has failed in many years.

Bud

 

Furd>

Did you not see my username? Actually, I'm only a novice at doing this type of woodwork. My DIL asked me probably because of one of hobbies is repairing & restoring old Violins, but I'm far from being a lutherie. By the way, the DIY's spellchecker says I missed spelled "lutherie"!!!??? However, it liked my guess at spelling tendons but did not like tenons. Go figure!!??

Thanks for you post, but I am NOT a fan of Gorilla Glue at all!!! God Bless!!!

Growingdimmer

 

Here's something I've found that may help me and hoping it may help others. Woodcraft sells a "Wood Repair Epoxy Putty" called "Quikwood" The Woodcraft salesman stated it will bond to wood like a glue with epoxy strength. So, HE says that supposedly I can rebuild my deformed tenons and then attach them to the mortises, again using Quikwood OR I may can place the putty on the tenons and immediately properly place them into the mortises. We'll see.

NOTE: It would certainly be wonderful if one of the glue and/or putty manufacturers like "Titebond" would make a wood filler that later can be glued with at least a 1500 psi bonding strength.

Maybe someone does!!??

 

My experience with glues, adhesives, and epoxies, is that virtually anything we can think of has already been developed. A few new ones will pop up, but the number already out there is amazing. The problem is, each has to be popular enough to justify going into production and only a few make it. Industrial applications are extensive.

Bud