Learn How To Fix Uneven Chair Legs: Easy 5-Step Tutorial

Commonly damaged furniture parts garner much attention, so here, we’ll look through the five steps for anyone curious on how to fix uneven chair legs and how you’re qualified to do it yourself. It’s been a harsh year and getting a repairman to come and do some fixing your home is just seeming too risky if not impossible. So, how about you learn how to fix things yourself?

Furniture does get damaged over everyday use beyond the usual wear and tear. Casual bumping, falling and other causes of impairment are more likely to occur before your sets reach their usable days. While most of them can be prevented, you’ll agree with us that accidents are just bound to happen.

how to fix uneven chair legs

Your chairs and tables, for example, used in high traffic areas of your home, like the kitchen or living room are probably having some wobbling issues now. This wobbling is so common on old seats that it may be the reason you bought that chair in the first place. Wobbling can be caused by a couple of factors, but let’s first focus on uneven legs.

 

Steps In Fixing Uneven Legs Of A Chair

Uneven chair legs can happen while it’s still being constructed or bit by bit in the duration that you’re using it. In carpentry, there might be some discrepancies in the measurements of the lengths and respective angles of the legs that cause the wobbling. In terms of your usage though, the screws, nails, and adhesive of chairs with especially thinner legs get moved around and come off.

No matter what caused the uneven legs, you would want to fix it asap lest it causes larger and irreversible damage. Here are our steps for your repair project:

 

Step #1. Find a perfectly leveled surface

Since our primary aim is to return your chair to a fully stable state, the first thing you need to find is the flattest surface. It would be preferable if it’s slightly elevated so it’s easy to check how the repair is coming later on. However, the priority is that it’s leveled well and wide enough to fit all of your chair’s feet simultaneously.

To check the level, you’ll need a leveling tool that looks like a ruler with a glass tube containing a colored or clear liquid and a bubble. If you want to check a certain surface, you just have to lay the level on the surface and adjust accordingly until the bubble is situated at the center of the tube. For the working area, pick a spot where you no longer need to make adjustments.

 

Step #2. Detach the legs of the chair

Next, take a paper tape, sticky note, or anything similar and label which leg and support go where, for when you reassemble it later on. It would be helpful if you also place a note on which leg seems to be causing the problem.

Using a hammer or a drill, detach the legs and supporting bars connected to the seat of the chair. Don’t remove the support bars that are not connected to the seat and those that are not wobbling.

Take a measuring device and see if the legs all measure the same length, and do the same for the hole of joints and the supports you removed. If their measurements all align, then the wobbling is probably coming from the joints coming off or loosening. In the case that the measurements are not the same, trim the longer parts to match the shortest one.

 

Step #3. Clean and smoothen the joining surfaces

Whether you’ve done some trimming or not, you need to smoothen and clean all surfaces that have to be joined later on. Remove all dust, old adhesive, paint, and other obstruction on holes and joints properly and use appropriate sandpaper to remove any roughness on the surface. Avoid rubbing with sandpaper too much since it can end up loosening your joints again.

 

Step #4. Glue your legs and supports in place

For an effective adhesive application, make sure that your surfaces are clean, the joints are tight, you’re using the right amount of glue, and you have enough clamping strength. Before applying glue, check if the joints fit tightly and that they’re clean. Then, try attaching all the legs back and check if the chair will no longer wobble on your flat surface.

Using an artist’s brush, apply the glue as evenly as you can on the joints. Again, use the appropriate glue with the proper amounts. Apply the glue on both the joint and the hole of the legs.

Insert the legs and supports, starting from the ones with the largest inclinations towards the perpendicular ones. Let the chair sit with something heavy on top to clamp the reattached parts so the glue dries well.

 

Step #5. Reconnect the screws

If your chair had some screws previously, reattach them carefully. Make sure you don’t hit the chair while the glue is still wet so you don’t end up altering the balance of the chair.

Check your chair with the leveling tool and adjust accordingly while the adhesive hasn’t hardened yet. We also recommend that you check the angles of the legs and support before considering your work done.

 

Conclusion

We have unveiled our quick process on how to fix uneven chair legs with minimal specialty tools. You should note though that repairs are case to case basis so some tricks applicable to others may not work for you. Make sure that you fix your chair right, so it lasts a long time.

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