Repairing A Dumpster Find Office Chair Attempt

[JaneBower]

A few years ago at work an old office chair that had seen better days ended up getting tossed in the dumpster after someone experienced metal fatique failure and ended up unexpectantly sitting on the floor - fortunately only their pride was hurt. The two cross bars that connected to the the two arm rest brackets and held the lower seat cushion that was mounted to the base part of the office chair broke as they were only made out of 5/8" light wall square tubing. One of the reasons I started this post was to point out that simple things like an office chair can become a dangerous tool to have in the shop or tool shed if they fail and result in an injury - I find as I get older it takes a lot longer to heal from a tumble. As a result I will make the suggestion that if you are using a stool or chair as a seat in your shop or shed have a look at the underside of it once in a while to make sure it is in good shape and not about to fail leaving you A.O.T. on hard concrete.

Since I am a repair it rather than scrap it type of person I decided to salvage the remains of the chair and finally got around to seeing if I could repair it so that I could have a nice office chair in the shop. The first thing I did was cut the two crosspieces off of the arm rest supports and then I fabricated two new crosspieces out of 1" x 1/8" angle iron - bent two pieces of angle iron in a curve to match the original shape and then welded the two pieces together to make them into tubing. Before I did that I spotted two 5/16" nuts in the proper hole locations so that I could bolt the finished crosspieces onto the chair base. Once I had the two crossmembers welded I welded the two arm rest support pieces to them to form a nice heavy duty cradle which should create a stronger framework to attach the bottom and back seat cushions to.

 

[DominicWhite]

Being a "repair it" kinda person, I decided to salvage the remains and fix it up. I swapped those weak crosspieces for some sturdy 1" x 1/8" angle iron ones, forming a solid cradle. No more flimsy stuff! It's all about DIY and making things last, right? So, fellow forum folks, what do you think? Any other cool repair projects you've taken on?

 

[JessicaBower]

So, a while back, we had this beaten-up office chair at work that ended up in the trash after someone had a little tumble (ouch, pride hurt!). The chair's cross bars gave in, but luckily no serious injuries. I thought I'd highlight how seemingly harmless things like office chairs can be risky if they fail unexpectedly. Getting older means healing takes longer, so safety first! If you use a stool or chair in your shop, give it a check now and then. But in my opinion, it would be better if you check out a similar store gardencentreshopping.co.uk. Maybe there will be something more suitable there.