Comments on: Office Chair Repair

Question: Office Chair Repair

hoppytoad — Tue, 15 May 2007 09:33:15 -0800

How best to reattach the back of an office chair?

There's a T bar connected to the seat bottom (pictured here) which is where the back of the seat (pictured here) used to attach. I added the white loops thinking they could slide onto the T bar, but the loops are placed wider than the arms of the T bar. Putting a wooden dowel through the loops secured the seat back from falling off, but the dowel snapped as soon as I leaned back. I would try a metal dowel instead, but the problem with a dowel is that it can still slide around horizontally and come out of the loops.

Is there a piece of hardware, or some combination of pieces, that I could use to secure the seat back?

By: humblepigeon

humblepigeon — Tue, 15 May 2007 09:43:40 -0800

I had almost exactly the same chair until recently, when one of the legs broke (yeah, the legs that the wheels attach to).

I know from past experience that these things are unfixable which is why I bought a new chair. I don't think you're going to be able to fix yours either.

There's a surprising amount of force involved in sitting on a chair, as you found when you leaned back, and it's hard to engineer around this.

By: IronLizard

IronLizard — Tue, 15 May 2007 12:34:54 -0800

Screw two small pipe clamps into the back of the chair while someone hold the back in place for you. The clamps should be small enough to hold the T tightly and can usually be found at your local hardware store. If they don't have those, they'll have something similar.

Example (also, metals ones are available).

By: hoppytoad

hoppytoad — Tue, 15 May 2007 20:16:32 -0800

I should probably get a new chair, but I'm going to give the pipe clamps a try and hope that if I fix it then legs won't break next. Then I really will need a new chair.

Thank you both for helping.