2022-09-16 - chair repair

yesterday my son swung on an arm support of my chair… and broke off 1 of 2 holding screws. since i work from home it required immediate attention. :) after disassembling the chair, it became clear that a metal, welded part broke off. “blue” marks the still-holding mount, while “red” is a missing one.

the chair is old (15+ years), but perfectly functional. i.e. one, small part breaking off should not be the show stopper. after giving it a bit though i decided to use 8mm threaded rod as a replacement for load-bearing rod from the original mount and a 3D printed replacement harness.

after printing (PLA) and assembly it it fit perfectly.

after assembling back the chair i honestly cannot tell a difference! the whole repair, end to end, took me around 2.5h. out of this time around 1h20m was printing time and around 40min measuring and modeling.

some ppl complain that 3D printing is just creating plastic waste as ppl just print more Yoda statues. i'd argue that's not the case - at least not in general. with 3D printing you can easily produce replacement parts or create brand new things. killer-app for 3D printing – perfectly-fitting enclosures for custom electronics. :)

w/o 3D printing i would not be able to repair the chair easily. the part that broke of was a custom-made, hand-welded (trust me - you can tell ;)) thing. there's no way i could get a new one for 15+ years old chair, even if i still remember manufacture's name. ;) sure – i could cut-and weld new one, but living in a flat, i do not have an easy access to tools required. with modern technologies however i was able to fix it on the spot. we live in great times! :)