Fixing a Broken Dowel on Anything

My eldest saw this frame at a store and wanted to purchase it for a gift. It was the only one but it was broken. I told her I could fix it and since I have been showing her how to do domestic projects, I thought I would show you as well. I have used this technique so many times over the years. I have had to repair many different items in this way.

I used a similar technique to fix my chair tops on my dining room table set. The spindles at the top will get broken when people put coats etc on them. I will use a dremel to drill a hole in the center of each broken piece and then glue in a wooden dowel in the holes to place the broken spindle decoration back on the chair.

This Disney frame had a broken dowel which wouldn't allow the one little frame on the right to stand even. I pulled off the frame on the right bottom of the castle and used a small dremel rounded drill bit to grind out the old dowel. It only took about five minutes to get both drilled out and then I measured the thickness of the existing dowel to find a similar dowel to replace it.

I found a shis-kabob stick that was a similar thickness. I have used pencils or other round wooden objects before as well. Tinker toys would work well also.

I measured it and used a rotary saw on the dremel to cut it to the right size. I then used wood glue on both sides of the dowels to hold the dowels in well. The whole project went quickly and now she has the Castle frame to give as a gift.

Hope you find this technique as helpful as I have over the years.