Repairing Broken Furniture Moldings

If you have done furniture repair and restoration for any amount of time, you have most likely come across broken moldings. They can be daunting but fear no more! For the furniture pieces you’ll be painting, there is an easy way to replicate and repair broken moldings.

Note: I have included affiliate links in this post to make it easy to find the products I use. I may receive a small commission from these products at no cost to you, which may cover a cup of coffee and keeps the free tutorials coming!

Supplies:
Non-stick spray or corn starch
Glue Gun– I use a high temperature glue gun, but any glue gun works
Bondo
5 Minute Epoxy
Sand Paper

There was a piece of molding missing on the chair I was working on. With the process I outline below, I made a cast of the existing molding with hot glue then made a new piece of molding with Bondo, attached it to the piece of furniture and painted as usual.  I apologize in advance for the lack of photos in this process! Originally, I wasn’t planning on writing a post for this process but had so many questions about it, I figured I should write a post!

Steps:

I recommend making a cast of the molding before prepping your furniture. Otherwise, you’ll want to go back and prep the molding area again after you make a cast with the hot glue. If you missed the post on how I prep my furniture pieces to paint, you can find it HERE.

First, heat up your hot glue gun. Decide which piece of in-tact molding matches the missing piece. Next you can do one of two things… either spray that in-tact molding piece with nonstick cooking spray OR dust with corn starch. If you spray with non-stick spray, make sure your prep process after includes a strong de-greaser (krud kutter, mineral spirits, etc) to thoroughly remove any remaining non-stick spray before painting. If you dust the existing in-tact molding with corn starch, prep as usual. The reason for using either the corn starch or non-stick spray is to make hot glue cast easy to remove from the furniture piece. Next, you’ll cover the piece of molding you want a cast out of with hot glue.

Once the glue hardens, very carefully remove the hot glue cast from the existing molding piece and dust the inside of the hot glue cast with corn starch.

Next, mix up a small amount of Bondo (according to the directions on the can) and use the Bondo to fill the casting you made with the hot glue. Try to fill the cast completely with the Bondo.

Once the Bondo has completely hardened. Carefully peel the hot glue casting away from the Bondo molding.

You should be left with a piece of molding you made out of Bondo which very closely resembles the missing piece. This is when you’ll thoroughly prep your furniture piece in preparation to paint, before attaching the new molding piece.

Next, trim and sand the edges of molding piece you made. It’s not going to be perfect when it comes out of the hot glue cast. I use my fingers or a putty knife to trim it as needed then various grades of sand paper (80-220grit) to smooth and sand the molding piece.

Once your furniture piece is prepped, mix a small amount (enough to cover the back of your molding piece) of 5-minute epoxy. Add a thin layer of the epoxy to the back of your molding piece and secure it into place. You’ll either want to hold it until the epoxy sets, or if I have other tasks to do in the meantime, I’ll put a piece of painters tape over the molding to hold it.

Here’s the “after” photo with the new molding piece after paint!

Here’s another missing molding piece I repaired with Bondo.

Before prep and repairing.

After prep and repairing with the new Bondo molding piece.

After repairing and painting!

Hopefully this process of repairing furniture molding will come of use in one of your furniture repairs!

Happy decorating!

~Sierra