Screw top

A very dear friend of ours gave us a beautiful old table that was unfortunately broken. It’s probably more than a 100 years old, and really quite delicate in its style. It has a main spindle supporting the table top, which has three legs at the bottom. However, the spindle was once screwed into a wooden fixing underneath the table top, which is currently broken in two.

It is such a beautiful piece of furniture, and I know it will look wonderful in our house, so I was really keen to see how Brian could fix it and for it to once again hold a glass or two. I can only imagine the many stories it has to tell - the drinks it has held, the conversations it has listened to, the joyous evenings it has shared - what a life it has lived.

There have been a couple of recent repairs, mainly where epoxy resin has been used to try and stick the top back on. So the first thing to do was to remove all the old glue. Brian approached this with care, so as not to damage the table further. He used a combination of white spirit and acetone to help break the old glue down, then chipped away carefully to remove any stubborn bits.

The threads are visible now on the spindle and the wooden fixing, so hopefully they will still have enough structure to twist together. The cleanup also revealed a small screw hole that had become too wide and needed closing up to help with the strength of the table top fitting.

He aligned the wooden screw plate and, using wood glue, he has secured it into place. This has been left overnight to dry.