Making a broken hydraulic and revolving chair reusable....

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... well - by dropping the hydraulic and revolving features !


I had a couple of chairs in my study room with hydraulic lifts (not that I needed this feature - the chairs were always set at their highest) and 5 revolving casters at the base. Both of them had their hydraulic struts at the end of their life, which means they frequently sank without notice !

Couple of weeks back in a lazy afternoon weekend, I got a little too comfortable on one of them when one of the legs gave away, and I crashed to the floor, face up, and in the process hurt my right shoulder (enough to keep me out of tennis for couple of weeks).

The broken base :








































The chair was now unusable and dangerous , so I planned on decommissioning it and getting a new one (now I DID NOT need a new one with hydraulic lift and revolving features).

But at second thoughts, other than the broken leg, and the unusable gas strut, everything else was fine with the chair.

So I took it up in my workshop, hammered out the leg part, then further hammered out the strut to only leave me with the seat and back rest.

Had some reclaimed sal wood (from the broken down homemade table saw), and made 4 legs with 15 degree angle. Joined 2 legs with a top brace (half lap joint) to form a sawhorse structure. Screwed in 2 pieces of 19mm ply on each of these sawhorse structures, and finally screwed them in to the base of the seat.


The way legs are attached to the seat


And voila - I give you the prime contender for the ugliest chair of the year. Form 0, Function 100.



Sorry - not many pictures as this was purely a proof of concept type of project.
Good, bad, ugly?  Please let know your thoughts in the comments section below.











Comments

  1. Divine blessingsSeptember 3, 2016 at 7:19 PM

    Hi SS,
    Cool idea and a nice project! I'm reminded of me throwing away one such broken swiveling chair some years back.
    By the way, I'm just wondering if any more bracing for the legs would be much better. Like you've give Front Right(FR) to FL and Rear Right (RR) to RL.
    How about adding FR to RR and FL to RL bracings too? Won't it make the legs much more stable and sturdy.
    Thanks
    Babu Kothandaraman

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. sidSeptember 4, 2016 at 12:30 AM

      Thanks for the feedback. There is a bit of sway in the chair, and I guess some diagonal bracing would take care of that minimum sway. Let's see what I can do.

      Delete
  2. srgbSeptember 9, 2016 at 1:42 PM

    I have come to realize chair making is an art (chairs are made to sit on not swing on)if they are to function well, you will find the bar across the front is a nuisance and could be further back, study other chairs you will be amazed at the intricate detail there is to get the strength needed especially in a strong chair back, I have made two chairs recently I drew then out and tried to copy some shop bought ones and yes they work but could be better, one day I will try again.
    You have done well rescuing what would have been rubbish and you have learnt something doing it keep on doing and learning its the university of life, well done.

    ReplyDelete

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