Mind Upon Mind: Making Tenons Pop

Editor’s note: Our Mind Upon Mind series is a nod to a 1937 Chips from the Chisel column (also featured in “Honest Labour: The Charles H. Hayward Years”), in which Hayward wrote, “The influence of mind upon mind is extraordinary.” The idea being there’s often room for improvement. To that end, we’ve asked you what else you have thought of, tried out and improved upon after building projects from our books. To submit your own idea, email [email protected]. You can read more about the submission process here.

Today’s pick is from Nick Stanchenko. Thanks, Nick!

— Kara Gebhart Uhl

From time to time, I get minor gaps around the stick and leg tenons. (I am not the only one, right?) These gaps become more apparent with the finish on, because they don’t reflect light in the same way as the surrounding area.

I read about filling small holes with cyanoacrylate (CA) glue and decided to give it a try.

Does it work? Kind of. But I accidentally discovered that its biggest effect is something else entirely.

You see, it’s relatively easy to plane, scrape or sand the glue residue from the face grain. But it soaks deep into the end grain and darkens it a lot. I don’t know how deep exactly, but I wasn’t able to remove it without making the whole arm thinner.

Owning my mistake, I decided that I like this look.

If you want to replicate it, smear a thin layer of CA glue across the tenon. Even coverage is important to avoid visible streaks. You can go outside the tenon to fill gaps and scrape the area later to clean it up. I would avoid doing this on deeply scooped seats, because some of the end grain is exposed around the leg mortises and can get stained as well.

Try at your own risk on important pieces because it’s hard to undo!

For reference, the illustration shows chairs made from European beech and finished with eight coats of shellac.

— Nick Stanchenko