Failure is always an option and often inevitable.
This blog exists because I ran into this poor old sot at last week’s auction:
Something not quite right here.
All four legs are present just not necessarily where you expect them to be.
We should explore some of the design flaws that led to the state of this poor table.
First, it has these small castors:
Castor – A pivoting roller attached to the bottom of furniture to allow it to be moved, not a hat made from the fur of the beaver.
The problem with castors is that upon seeing castors, people now expect furniture to roll. And it does after a fashion. These are not 50 mph casters and not even 2 mph castors. They seldom work well on a flat, even floor and not that well on irregular floors or carpets. The transition from hard floors to carpets or rugs even more problematic.
The next failure is a bad glue joint without any physical reinforcement. I am holding up the leg to show you where it is intended to be:
The leg broke off on the glue joint. The legs where just glued onto the center without dowel or spline or tenon for mechanical support.
And this is the joint:
Bad glue joint or a bad repair of a failed glue joint? You decide.
Of course, even if the glue joint doesn’t fail, you are still working with a wood that Peter Follansbee loves for how cleanly and willingly it splits, oak.
Glue joint is fine, wood failure is imminent.
The fourth leg and glue joint seem firmly attached:
For now.
I am not claiming that all tables of this design will fail, I just saying you shouldn’t be surprised when they do.
I wonder if it arrived at the auction house like this or broke on site? And who bought it and for how much?
The Furniture Record 
That big blob of white is likely an example of somebody attempting a PVA repair without clamping. I am not too critical of failure in furniture in of itself. I judge whether it was made with repair in its design and construction. 95% of industrially manufactured furniture fails in this regard. I agree that the casters are undersized but are they original? How long did this piece function as a table before the leg broke? 80-100 years? That’s better than what most homeowners expect today. For all of its construction flaws, this table is a candidate for repair/upgrade due to its solid wood stock and that makes it an admirable piece in my book.
I think the table is actually a very charming little thing and I wonder how long it functioned before the wood started splitting. I do agree that there is a major flaw in the design when it comes to joinery, which makes me wonder whether the legs were made by a furniture maker in the first place. It just seems like someone has put a lot of work in it, too much to just slack on the mechanical support, so perhaps it has been replaced before? Like mentioned by someone else, it does seem like someone has tried to glue things together with PVA, clearly without success. I also never really understood why you’d put wheels under a table. Wheels – even with recent designs – tend to disappoint in my opinion. Besides, would you really move such a table around that much?
Still, I think I’d definitely try to repair it if I’d ever get my hands on something similar. I do like the look of it and I think, if you’d remove the wheels, you’d have an intriguing piece of furniture in your house.
Dear Mark,
Thank you for sharing this exquisite piece of furniture. It looks like it could use some help. I actually really like the design and think you could fix it pretty easily with some dowels, glue and a little bit of care and attention. Like I said the design is nice but it lacks of knowledge about the strength of the legs and joints. I hope somebody will take care of this fine piece of furniture and helps to give it a new life.
Dear Mark,
Thank you for shearing this whit us. When someone make a fold you can learn from the fold. Because next time they do it different. I had made a lot of folds the last years. But a always learn from them. And that is how it works. Everyone makes folds. Nobody is perfect. I hope that the tables are better now. And if they has just the wrong glue is it there fold. And they learn from it. I hope. And I think that they will use a other glue. But they do that if they know what’s happened whit the glue. If they don’t know about, they can’t change anything.
What a lovely little table! Thanks for sharing the clear explanation about the defects of this por thing. It is okay to fail, because you can learn from it. Fixing mistakes is the best learning school for a woodworker, I think. I hope someone gives him a little bit of love and fixed him. Besides his problems, the craftsmanship looks fine! I think that someone putted a lot of time in it. I love to look at old furniture’s. I like the details and fine work. The modern furniture you see now are often simple and boring, but perhaps it is coming back?
Wow where did you find this. This furniture is in a horrible state and I hope that this is the only one of his kind. When I saw the title of your blog I thought you wanted to tell about your own mistakes so we could learn from them, but this is a whole other story. Well I guess we can learn from this blog that you have to make sure to use enough glue and put some support like a dowel. I just think this is a very old table, and most old thinks break down, so it is not strange that the legs fell off. The design is very good and it looks difficult to make. I think that I would not be able to make furniture like this.
Thank for sharing
Thank you for sharing this story. The table looks beautiful and it have some great details In it. I hope that the buyer gives a lot of love to it and that he/she maintains it well. I do not think that all tables of that design will fail if you use an other type of wood like maple or beech wood. Those wood types are a little bit stronger. I think also with the wood type oak it will still not fail because it is the age of the table. Over time, it may wear out and may also have sufferd a lot of damage. So I think yhat the design is not the fault.
Thanks for sharing this nice blog,
Thanks for showing how to fix that mistakes. I think you have a very nice table there. If you repair this table you don’t make this mistakes in the future. Then you are learning from someone else his mistakes. This table has a nice and detailed design. If you restore this table you will have a very nice piece of furniture in your house. If I was you then I think that it would be nice if you put the wheels off, because then it has a sleek appearance.
Keep up the good work!
Poor table it really looks like it has seen better day but that isn’t strange because it looks like the table is over a hundred years old. I like the look of it and i hope someone will give this table a good repair and fix it up. I think if a good woodworker buys it he could make some good improvements to the table so that the legs will be more stable. thank you for posting this it was interesting to see and read.
Dear Mark,
I think the table is actually a very charming little thing and I wonder how long it functioned before the wood started splitting. I do agree that there is a major flaw in the design when it comes to joinery, which makes me wonder whether the legs were made by a furniture maker in the first place.
I agree that the casters are undersized but are they original? How long did this piece function as a table before the leg broke? I like the details and fine work. The modern furniture you see now are often simple and boring, but perhaps it is coming back?
I love the quote “Failure is always an option and often inevitable”. I relate a lot to it, my heart shatters to pieces when I read about how this poor old sot has been abused. In my opinion, it is wrong that they did not add a dowel, spline or tenon. Everyone could see it was not going to be strong enough without some sort of mechanical support. In regards to your second question, I would say it was a bad repair of a failed glue joint. I would love to hear more about the answers to your last questions too!
dear Mark,
thank you for pointing out he mistakes with this table, I think the table would have been a nice piece of furniture without his wheels. Mostly because moving a large piece of furniture around your house a lot already sounds like an inconvenience to me. but it does look really nice and it is shame people treated it so poorly I hope you fixed the mistakes
Dear mark,
At first I like to say that the table itself is a quite nice design. But what I do not understand is why people put casters under them. I mean, a table is not made to roll around the whole living room. If I would buy a table like this I would give it its own place some were and I would not move it very much overtime. And yes, what you said about oak and splitting is absolutely true. It splits very easy and indeed very clean. But I like the look of unfinished oak a lot. It looks awesome with al the texture and grain patterns.
Thanks for sharing, Jonathan
Hi Mark,
It does look to be quite old, but I do not think the legs have been replaced before, maybe the joinery was just a big mistake by the woodworker who made this even though the rest looks very nice!, the castors must have definitely been added later since it would not be necessary to move this kind of furniture around in the first place.
Thank you for posting
Colin
Hello Mark,
It looks like a very Nice table. It obviously can use some work. I really like the design of it. It looks like a antique table. To bad that the other legs fell off, and that the wood started splitting. I think it already has a Nice colour. Maybe it needs some sanding and a new oil layer. I hope you can turn it back into a good and Nice table.
Dear Mark,
Thanks for sharing this old piece of furniture. It seems really nice but it needs some fixing. I don’t think it had been fixed before like you said, I think it had never been better than this. I don’t know how old this piece is but if it has been fixed, they did it the wrong way. I just don’t know why you would put wheels under this table. I myself would not move it that much. So, in my opinion the wheels are unnecessary. But that’s personal. Anyway, I think if you fix this the right way and give it a little makeover it would be a nice table. Maybe it needs a little oil or wax or whatever too. It is a nice table and very unique.