Pirates Treasure Chest Repair - Fixing Split or Chipped Wood

For months, I had been looking for a treasure box. I went to many second hand stores and also asked around looking for one to use for our "treasure hunt" hike we were playing. 
 
One morning I was headed out to my family reunion and I had a mishap and because of that, I went a different way to the highway. On my way, I saw a sign for a yard sale. I posted about that blessing on another post. 
 
With that, I found the jewelry box / pirate treasure chest I had been looking for for all that time. I bought it and brought it home and there was a broken hinge on it. 
 
I was thinking I may be able to use it broken but then thought that it may become irreparable if I didn't fix it before we took it on the treasure hunt hike. 
 
The chest had a broken hinge and due to that, the wood around where the screws went in had broken off. 

I went to my neighbors and had him help me cut a piece of wood the size of the crack in the back of the box. 
 
I then took a chisel and chiseled out the broken area of the box hinge to make it square so I could glue in the new wooden piece.
 
When chiseling out the wood scraps, save some of them so you can mix the shavings in with the wood putty and glue so that the putty will match the wood color. 
 
Once you have the area cut out, put the wood piece in the spot and glue it into place. You will need to clamp it down. 
 
I clamped it down and then when it was dry, I screwed the hinge back in where they were but it caused the wood to separate a little so I then glued the screws in and then clamped it down again and let it dry. I also used a hinge in the side to keep the box from opening too wide.
 
Once the wood was glued, while the glue was still wet, mix in some of the wood shavings to the glue and fill in the holes with the glue or putty. 
 
Once it is dry, sand down the rough edges and smooth the entire thing out. At this point, you can stain the area if it is a repair on a drawer, chest, chair, bench, or any other wood item. I needed to paint the fix on the box but I had been up all night so I did a very rushed job. I just mixed some colors of paint I had and did a quick paint job. 
 
If I had more time, I would have done a better job but now that camp is over, I am only planning on using it for decoration so I really don't want to take time to fix it. 
 
If you are doing something like a dresser you will use all the time, you will want to do a better job mixing paint or matching the stain used on the item you are fixing. 
 
I have used this method on dressers and other pieces of furniture to replace chipped out wood.As you can see by the pictures, it came out quite well even though I did a quick paint job and I didn't sand it down before painting it. Even with my hasty job, it still came out well. 


I also needed to fix the hinge. I think the reason the back split was that the hinge pin was missing and someone used a paper clip to replace it and that left moving room which split the wood. 

I used a nail to replace the hinge pin and to do that, I just cut the top of the nail off and then used glue on both ends to keep the pin in. 

Watch the video if you have any questions feel free to ask and questions.