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The wooden legs of my Ikea Lauters lamp came loose and I need some advice how to fix it.

This is how the lamp looks like - you see the wooden legs:the lamp

The 3 legs each have a wooden "peg" that enters in a hole in the wooden disk and also a hole through which a screw connects to a nut that was fixed in that disk:

screws

My problem is the nut that was inside the disk came off and there's no way to fix it back in the wooden disk. You see, the outer "teeth" of the nut must have eaten the wood away: enter image description here

Any ideas how to fix this? I'm a total newbie. One solution would be to glue the nut and the leg but I don't know what glue to use.

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    Hi, welcome to Woodworking. You neglected to include a photo of the chewed up hole and how far gone that is could be the most important detail for the ideal fix here. But simply epoxying the nut into the hole should work regardless.
    – Graphus
    Oct 12, 2022 at 12:58

2 Answers 2

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There are a few different ways to go about fixing this.

  1. replace the 'disk' with a new piece of wood and drill all the holes etc to 'recreate it'. "Most work"

  2. drill the hole out (maybe with a forsner bit) and glue in a plug of the same size as the drilled hole, then redrill the smaller hole and reinsert the 'insert'

  3. fill the current hole with glue and sawdust, after it sets, redrill the pilot hole and reinsert the insert (least effective)

  4. Use epoxy to 'glue' the insert back in. Make sure you have a bolt in the insert so the insert doesn't get filled with the epoxy or alternatively, fill the hole with epoxy then redrill it and put the insert back.

I would personally tend toward #1, but #4 would be a close second, and depending on materials, and tools available, #4 becomes much more appealing.

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  • Is there a special kind of epoxy glue I should look for? I see there's glue, putty... Thanks
    – GabiM
    Oct 11, 2022 at 20:23
  • @GabiM Not really, most epoxy would work just fine for this project.
    – bowlturner ♦
    Oct 12, 2022 at 12:46
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    1. Most work..... ROFL understatement ^_^ Arguably impossible for a number of reason, topping the list being the lack of a lathe! I think 2 is out (likely no Forstners, almost certainly no drill press, shouldn't be done with a dowel but a long-grain plug.... which may require a plug-cutting set). 3, could effectively be a subset of 4, if epoxy is used as the glue. However there's likely no 'sawdust' (sanding dust) available, so 4 by default.
    – Graphus
    Oct 12, 2022 at 13:04
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    @GabiM, you want glue for this, not putty since you can't be sure of the properties of putty (even ones that are supposedly strong are not reliable if sold in "Tootsie Roll" format). You don't need a sophisticated epoxy glue for this, 5-min stuff from the dollar store is generally quite decent surprisingly. Plus the load the fix is required to withstand is small anyway. Two important details for success here: degrease the nut, and wax or grease the bolt or you'll permanently glue the bolt in place which you do not want. After that be sure not to overtighten the bolt when refixing the leg.
    – Graphus
    Oct 12, 2022 at 13:11
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    For an Ikea lamp, #4 is the way to go. If you use cheap 5-minute epoxy, don't fill the hole all the way because a lot of it will come out as you push the nut in. You can thicken the epoxy with fine sawdust, wood flour, or even wheat flour, which will both add strength and also make it less runny, so it makes less mess as you add the nut. Graphus's point about the wax is a good one; if you don't have a can of wax handy, you could also just wrap the end of the nut + bolt with a bit of tape (painter's, masking, electrical, duct -- doesn't really matter) to prevent the epoxy from getting in.
    – Caleb
    Oct 12, 2022 at 15:24
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My quick and dirty fix would be to just replace the insert with another dowel and glue. Just drill out the threaded holes with a bit size that matches the dowel. Should be good enough for an Ikea lamp, assuming you're not doing pull-ups on it.

Edit: "drill out the threaded holes", meaning you want to clean out the threads both inside the hole in the disk and also the pocket hole in the leg.

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  • The missed, but important detail is that the other side of the fitting would also need to be drilled out to match
    – FreeMan
    Nov 10, 2022 at 18:03
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    Ah yes, thanks for pointing that out. Typical Ikea fittings. Will edit my answer.
    – Woodchuck would chuck wood
    Nov 11, 2022 at 19:42

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