The middle wooden baluster on the main staircase railing has been rattling and spinning in its socket for weeks because the original factory wood glue completely dried up and failed. Every single time someone walked down the stairs and grabbed the handrail, the whole section would wobble and make this annoying clicking sound. I bought a basic wood repair kit and some heavy duty wood glue, thinking I’d just squirt some adhesive into the base and be done with it. What a total joke.
The biggest issue right away was that the bottom pin of the wooden spindle had completely sheared off inside the tread hole from years of people leaning on it. Trying to get the broken wooden plug out of the deep floor socket without scratching the finished hardwood stairs was an absolute pain. I had to sit on the step with a hammer and a tiny chisel, slowly chipping away at the stuck wood fibers millimeter by millimeter until the hole was finally clear enough for a new dowel pin.
Then came the real headache of getting the spindle back into alignment with the upper handrail groove. Because old houses settle over time, the angle of the staircase railing was slightly warped, meaning the new wooden pin wouldn’t slide straight into the top slot at all. I had to use a hand file to manually shave down the top edge of the square block at a weird angle, testing the fit over and over again while trying not to split the grain.