My boys (5,7) sent a mini trampoline rolling down the stairs, and it took out one of the railings on our banister. The railing is intact, but the handrail is busted (as seen in picture). We have the splinters, but are afraid of what this is going to look like if we glue them back in. What’s the best way to repair this?
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The only thing that you can really do there without replacing the hole top rail is take the splinters and reapply them with carpenters wood glue. Use plenty of glue. 24 hours later lightly sand the excess glue with a smooth grit paper like 120 or 180 grit. After you are done that, brush off the dust and any excess around the splinters then take some oak wood filling compound and apply around the split and splintered areas. You want it to stick out a little bit so that it can be sanded and compounded in later. After 24 hours of it setting up you can then take the light sand paper again and sand down the filler to the surface. Once that’s done, find a matching stain as close as you can to the same color and apply it. 24 hours later apply a coat of polyurethane and one additional coat 24 hours later. Not saying its the perfect fix, but that’s the closest to best repair you can possibly do without just taking the hole top banister off and replacing it all along with the filler pieces underneath.
Don’t be afraid of the gluing repair. If you have all the pieces, dry fit them together in place (on the rail itself) so you will know exactly how to glue it in. A carpenters glue will work fine, but the trick is making sure there is a thin application of glue on both pieces and then even clamping pressure applied to hold the repair TIGHT and in place. Glue should squeeze out when tightened well, but don’t overtighten too much and dent the wood, Wipe off excess glue. If you don’t have access to clamps, you can use some scrap pieces of wood over the repair and use some cloth or rope to make a tourniquette type of clamp to hold the block in place by twisting it tight and taping it in place. Be careful not to glue the clamping block to the rail when tightening. You can avoid this by placing a piece of wax paper between the block and the repair. Glue should dry in about 2-3 hours and you can remove the clamping. At this point, you will need to remove excess glue. I would probably use a scraper, but it may be more advisable for you to use sand paper. Depending on the amount of excess will depend on the grit you will need. I would probably start with a 220 just enough to remove the glue. Examine the repair. If there is just a hairline fracture, you may not need to do anything else other than buff out the repair. If there is missing wood, you will have to use a stainable wood filler or a colored filler depending on the amount of wood to fill followed by light sanding and then a thinned coat of polyurethane matching the sheen of the existing finish with a finer sand paper 400-600 followed by a buffing cloth. Good to go!
I don’t disagree with the other two responses, though I’ve rarely had luck getting splinters of wood to stay in place well enough. The working faces are usually too ratty to allow the repair to look good. I would be worried that a splinter would catch on someone’s clothes or something.
There are a couple other options, but you’ll need to be proficient with woodworking. The easiest is to remove the top rail. Scarf cut the damaged section away and replace it. If you can’t do it, call a handyman or remove the top rail yourself and take it (and a matching piece of rail) to a cabinet shop.
The biggest issue is the assembly of the railing balusters and attachment to the post, if these items can be removed and reattached with relative ease without doing damage to these components the ideal scenario is to replace and refinish the affected area, if not, call a cabinet or furniture refinisher to evaluate the damage to see if its repairable.
Finally a question I specialize in. I do exactly this type of repair for home owners all the time.
What I do- I use super glue and an accelorator to glue any pieces back together. Accelorator is a spray that dries superglues immediately. So no clamping is necessary. Trying to clamp splintered strips of wood is tough to clamp evenly. IF using a clamp block you may not be able to see the area being clamped.For a very clean break this could be all you need to do. In my experience once glue has been applied the area is now thicker and getting it 100% flush around the edges of the break area may not be possible.
This is the part you are worried about! Once I have glued everything. and lets say there are missing pieces. This is where you want to find a company like mine or try to perform what is called a “burn in” repair. A burn in repair is using a hard wax filler that needs to be melted into the defected area. These fillers come in several colors and can be mixed to match yours exactly. These waxes can be shaped and made smooth very quickly with a plastic scraper. Draw in a little color with a graining pen or fine brush. Spray a little lacquer over the area and poof…
You have seen the touch up pens and wax sticks at hardware stores. A company like mine uses professional versions of those materials. Usually made by either Mohawk or Konig. if you look up either of those companies touch up supplies. You will see the professional version of the tools.
If you live in the Seattle Tacoma area feel free to call on me. That repair would take less that 2 hours to complete and cost less than $200.00