loose lyre posts/Patrick Draine

[Joseph Garrett]

Patrick,
What you appear to have is dowels in a "blind" mortise. the way these are
done, is to cut slit in the dowel, make appropriate dimensioned wedge,
slather with glue and drive the post/dowel into the blind mortice until
flush and tight. The down side of this sort of thing is that the dowel needs
to be somewhat loose in the hole, to begin with. The "flared" part of the
dowel is larger than the top part of the hole! Getting those apart will be
difficult, at best, IMO. I'd probably do some careful measurements to find
the exact center of the "dowels" and drill down from the top, exposing the
end of the dowels, so they can be driven out. Once you get them apart, you
would be able to add thin veneer to the dowels and reinsert. I'd re-slit the
dowels and make the Maple wedges with a lesser taper, so that they spread
almost the full length of the dowels. Titebond would probably be the
appropriate glue. Finally, you'd have to make some "plugs" to fill the part
you drilled out, on the top, (tight fitting for sure!) The only other option
would be to wick CA into the dowel area. I don't think CA would take the
forces involved with lyres, tho. :-( The amount of work needed to do this is
pretty much equal to making a new lyre! Sorry, but no easy way is apparent
to me.
Best Regards,
Joe Garrett, RPT, (Oregon)

Been There, Didn't Like It, So I'm Here To Stay! [G}