Repairing A Foot Stool

Footstools or ottomans  are popular  additions to chairs and couches and are designed for people to rest their feet on or for additional seating.

They also serve additional functions of storing items such a blankets and books on, and although not recommended, are occasionally used as a stepping stool.

As you can imagine footstools and ottomans take a beating, especially if they are used often.  One of the many repairs that I see on footstools and ottomans are loose legs.

 

Many store bought stools have threaded inserts that accept a machine threaded bolt.  This bolt usually has a machine thread on one end and the other is a wood thread.  The wood thread side inserts into the stools leg.  this is where the  failure usually occurs.

Use or misuse causes the legs to spin loose and eventually wiggle which in turn elongates or widens the wood threaded hole causing the leg to become permanently loose or wobble.

1.  Quick fix

2.  More involved repair

For the quick fix:

I use thin strips of wood or even toothpicks and a little wood glue to make the wood hole smaller.  I then insert the wood threaded bolt.  The additional wood gives the threaded bolt something to grab against.

Use ChannelLock pliers to hold the threaded screw as you hand turn the wooden leg.

For this I would use a dowel or cut a wood plug with a utility knife and completely fill in the threaded hole.

Once the wood plug has dried cut it flush with a utility knife of flush cutting saw and then re-drill the hole [slightly smaller than the wood threads] on a drill press or carefully by hand.

Then re-thread the stool leg into your new hole using ChannelLock pliers.