I have an ancient and rather ugly office chair which I love to pieces. Unfortunately, on Thursday morning, the chair attempted to make that literal, as I sat down and heard a nasty splintering sound. Now, I got this thing secondhand, and it's always had a vertical split up one wooden leg. My brother had run four large carriage bolts through it in an attempt to hold it together, which in hidsight turned out to be a bad idea, as one half of the leg had split in the opposite direction along the line of the first two bolts. ☹️
Removing the bolts, applying a rather considerable amount of wood glue and some dowels, then clamping it, letting it dry, and cleaning up got me to the point shown in the picture (larger version here )
What I need to know is, is there anything I can do to structurally reinforce this thing any further, short of replacing either that leg (beyond my skill level at the moment) or the entire base (a new one would have to be shipped up from the US)? In particular, would "splinting" it with a piece of new wood along the damaged side (or pieces along both sides) help keep it from tearing itself apart? Or should I just redrill the hole for the castor further away from the end, put a couple of C-clamps on, and hope it holds long enough for a new base to arrive?
I want my chair back. 😭
What I would do and i'll preface this by it may be beyond repair.
On the bottom dril 1/2 holes and add dowels like you did on the side. that will help reinforce that split.
Then to try and save it get a 1/8 " metal or aluminum strip and drill holes in it for screws. 4-6 even spaced. then get screws that go about halfway into the leg from the bottom. screw that metal piece on it (bottom of leg). make sure its as long as like 3/4 of that leg and just a hair less wide. that should add some structural strength.
again it may be too weakened but why not try...