Monday, March 2, 2015

Workbench chair



In this instructable, I'll show you how I made my workbench chair and hopefully inspire you to make it or come up with a creative solution for workshop. When I built my workbench I wanted a cheap, nice? chair to sit on when I am working on something at my bench. I tried a leaning stool and it worked great but I found myself wanting something different. That is why I set out to build my own chair.
Need something to do with the other half of the chair you didn't use? Why not try this. I saw it and thought it would be a great way to have my laptop close to me when I'm working on some project

Step 1: The Materials







Here's the short list of materials I used to make my chair:
  • 3/4 inch plywood or something similar (I used 3/4 inch because that's what I had sitting around)
  • Random nuts, bolts, and washers
    • I have a box of different size bolts for just this purpose (same goes for the nuts and washers
  • A walker
    • I got mine from goodwill and tested it out at the store before I got it.
    • I also picked one that did not fold up because I felt it was sturdier than the ones that do
  • A small chair to sacrifice
    • I went looking at different thrift stores to find one that would work since I didn't have one lying around. After looking around I couldn't find one that was good for this project and cheap. So I went to work one day and saw there was one one clearance. So I bought the chair and took it home.
  • Paint
    • If you want it to look better than a chair bolted to a piece of wood and walker

Step 2: Cut and drill the wood and walker









  • Measure the rail around the top of the walker and mark that on your piece of wood
  • Fit it on the rail of the walker and make any necessary adjustments to the piece of wood (I rounded the corners on mine so they weren't sticking out)
  • Next you will want to measure and drill some holes on the side rails of the walker (Mine were 2 inches in from the legs of the walker)
  • Transfer and drill the holes to your board
  • Now you will make four holes for the bottom of your chair (I forgot about this and had to do it later)
    • I used the metal bracket that holds the piston to the chair for marking out my holes
    • I found the center of the bracket and the center of the wood then aligned them to mark the holes
    • Drill out the holes
  • Test fit the chair to the board to see if any changes have to be made before going on to the next step

Step 3: Painting the board and walker (optional)





 Paint your board and walker in the color of your choosing. I chose to paint my board black and leave my walker unpainted. This is also where I realized I forgot to drill the holes for my chair seat.


Step 4: Assemble Everything











Now assemble all the pieces together to get a custom high chair for your workbench.
  • Start by using some of those random nuts and bolts to secure your board to the walker
  • Next you will bolt the chair to the board with some more random bolts and washers
Let me know what you think of this instructable. What could have been done better or different?