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Worth restoring this step stool?
(lemmy.world)
Found it on the curb, and I liked the design. Looks like solid wood, but the joints are all coming apart and look tricky to reinforce. Would you bother?
If you have the time there's no harm, but you're probably going to want to disassemble the steps to repair it halfway well.
Depending on the weight of the person/people who will be be using it, you might want to rethink the design or make the steps out of something thicker/beefier. Since the two treads are essentially cantilevers, the riser and torque is all that's prevent the far end of either step from collapsing. I don't think a butt joint is good enough here, even if it has a backer (as the pictures show). A finger joint between the treads and the riser, with many smaller fingers, is probably your best bet. You'll probably want a table saw and a jig/slead to cut them, unless you're familiar with a good alternative and/or have the skill and time to do it with hand tools.
I think this is made from an exceptionally hard wood. It looks a lot like walnut or pecan. I would be concerned about cutting across the grain with a powered saw causing chipping and ruining the piece. I think I would repair the current joint and add a center leg or probably a leg on both sides to support that joint.
I just made a table saw box joint jig, I like the idea of using that to redo the joints on this.
And thanks for the word of caution about chipping on very hard wood, maybe I can test on a small area.
If so else fails, some nice scrap wood for making splines.