Tuesday, July 30, 2013

More "Crowd-sourced Solutions"

I'm building a swivel chair for my daughter. It's actually an old IKEA chair with a round seat and a wooden shaped back which I removed and attached to the seat with hinge (think toilet seat cover for a visual as I can't put a photo up at this point). The hinged part will support a leather saddle which she wants to convert to a seat for her room.

The engineering problem is that I want something to support the hinged saddle part and which adjusts through an angle of about 5 to 30 degrees. I made this quick sketch:

I've thought of just using various sized shims made out of wood but I'd rather have something adjustable which can bolt to the base and to the seat part. It should be strong and able to support the weight of a small adult and the saddle.

15 comments:

ndspinelli said...

WTF, Are you Norm Abrams?

The Dude said...

I could draw a sketch much more readily than I can describe my idea in words. Basically it is a curved bracket that mounts to one piece and is secured to the other using a stud and a wing nut.

I have made those in the past for similar applications. I lay it out in Autocad, mill it on my CNC and bam, in a few minutes, there you go.

It can also be laid out and fabricated using hand tools and a trammel point.

Main thing is to make the radius of the groove match the distance from the pivot to the location of the support bracket.

Words are insufficient to convey the idea precisely, but it is a fairly common problem which has been solved many times.

bagoh20 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
bagoh20 said...

Get a large diameter bolt with nut preferably an acme thread (very coarse), but a standard 3/4" from Home depot will work. (even 1/2 - 13 will work)
Buy a matching nut.
Drill hole in bottom surface for bolt.
Epoxy nut to top surface of bottom plate directly above hole so bolt can be threaded through the nut up and down to change and hold desired angle.

May need small plate epoxied to seat bottom where bolt hits to prevent wear to bottom of seat

Methadras said...

Go to McMaster Carr and look up jack screws. You should be able to find something that will fit the bill.

Methadras said...

Or you could do what bag suggests which is roughly the same thing.

Methadras said...

You can use a swivel nut here to help. Make sure you drill a hole to allow the screw thread to pass through.

http://www.mcmaster.com/#swivel-nuts/=nulcua

ndspinelli said...

None of these wood guys could be Norm Abrams because they don't use biscuits in their plans.

bagoh20 said...

Here's a quick drawing of my idea above:


Seat adjuster

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Why not use some bicycle seat springs. Repurpose the spring section of an old bike seat. Something like this

Michael Haz said...

Use a stick. If you want to get all tech-y, put a notch in one end. Either end will do.

Michael Haz said...

Alternatively, you could just throw it away (save the saddle) and build her something really cool, like this.

Noise may be involved. Just sayin'.

chickelit said...

Bags, I like your solution the best so far. It is simple. I haven't yet perused the catalog Methadras suggested.

But thanks all for the suggestions so far.

deborah said...

Haz, I'd rather have the floating picnic table.

bagoh20 said...

"Bags, I like your solution the best so far. It is simple."

I'm like a hammer, but without all the bells and whistles.

I have a PhD in A.S.S. - Applied Simpletonian Science