One of the missing pieces to the screen porch project of two summers ago was a couch. Looking around the net for suitable couches hasn’t been fun: most stuff is too fussy, grandiose, and/or costly. My wife found a simple offering on Craigslist which we bought for $65. It turns out that the owner hauled it up from the Florida Keys and it got spray painted brown as a family project. There are a couple of dog chewed corners. No matter, we like the simple design and the colorful upholstery (and dogs are my favorite people). The price, too!
One repair was essential. A bamboo leg and arm post was broken in a jagged horizontal line right above where the front rail joined it. The arm pivoted side to side. The fibers on the inside/cushion face were caved in. Here’s how I effected the repair, clumsy as it ended up looking.
First, it got straightened vertically by means of a bungee chord. I pulled the upper and lower sections apart as much as I could to expose a gap for marine epoxy to be applied. The crushed fibers were mostly re-aligned and then the sections allowed to mate again. This was by no means an adequate final repair.
Next, I hollowed out a block of Poplar to match the exterior radius of the bamboo and scribed around the lashings, then shaped a curve to the outside of the block. This was epoxied, clamped, and allowed to cure overnight.
The next day I fit a section of pvc tubing to bridge the crushed fibers and epoxied it in place.
Next I used medium wicker webbing to lash around the block and the pvc tubing.
A start to staining it was to use a nut brown water based stain. It didn’t penetrate the webbing. Perhaps we will repaint the whole thing some day but for now it is funky and fine. Just ask our daughter.
SOURCE: – Read entire story here.