Turn an Old Car Seat into a New Office Chair | Articles

Desk jobs are not all bad, what with their air conditioning and livable salaries. But there's one thing that's been bugging us: our uncomfortable office chair. Most people see two options here: Suffer on an uncomfortable perch all day long, or pony up for one of those expensive "executive" chairs found in the SkyMall catalog. We are car people, though, so we prefer a more creative solution. Almost anybody who's built a car or two has an extra seat lying around, and in our case it was the stock seat from a Fiesta. Time to put it to use. The office chair is held to its base with four bolts near the middle, while the Fiesta seat is bolted to the car with a bolt on each corner. To bolt the Fiesta seat to the office chair base, we would need to make an adapter. We used pieces of scrap steel, but you can also buy some appropriate metal at your local home improvement store. We started by cutting, drilling and bolting a piece of angle iron to either end of the seat. Then we cut two more pieces of steel to create a box. Ideally this box should match up to the office chair's base. We clamped everything together and sat the seat on the chair base to make sure everything was lined up correctly. Time to break out the torch and weld our steel pieces together. Do not own a welder? Bolting the steel together will work fine, too. Once the welds were cool, we drilled four holes and bolted the steel to the base. After applying a quick coat of paint, we were ready to attach the car's seat. All done. We gave it a test-sit to make sure we would centered the weight over the base. Not surprisingly, our new chair is much more comfortable than the one it replaced. Interestingly, I was contemplating the exact thing yesterday. Did you maintain the electric controls? Oooo ... since I am on work from home status for the foreseeable future, I should do that with the GTI's passenger seat! But, I would need to hook up the seat heater to really make it comfortable down here in my basement "office"! I am sitting in my usual chair, an office chair made from a Viper seat. I've had this one for over twenty years. Now to figure out the armrests and heated seat function.... I have a chair made from an E36 passenger seat that came out of my 318ti. It's very comfy. Because it was a fully manual seat, it needed no hookups. While it no longer slides or rises up, I did keep the tilt back function for when i need a small nap I've been staring at that spare captain's chair from the van sitting in the garage & plotting how I am going to install casters on it, so I can use it for suspension work. Or just sit in it, trying to get enough motivation to do suspension work. Does it immediately fall over if you recline? :P Here's mine! (And yes, you can keep the power functions like recline and heat - just grab and old laptop power supply rated for 14ish volts). Who's going to build one out of one of those Mercedes-Benz messaging seats? Fiesta? That's a fair bit of work, maybe better to choose an upmarket (and more ergonomic and comfortable) seat like a BMW M or some of the modern Jags etc.? There are a lot of cars whose seat I would not want to spend the day in, and the Fiesta is one of them. I made one from a blue/purple velour Saab C900 seat. Now that I am working from home it is more comfortable than my normal office chair. I did not hook up the seat heater though. Oh you gotta do the heater. Game changer. Possibly even more effective if your cohabitator is always cold and you do not want to get boiled out of your own house. FuzzWuzzy said: Now to figure out the armrests and heated seat function.... Heated seats are as simple as a 12v power supply. OK, I grant you that anything with th BMW symbol wo not be that cheap! I actually spent a fair bit for my office chair but it was worth it - I got a couple of decades of comfort out of it. If this is not going to be a constant every day use chair, ergonomics can come second. Back seats also make great sofas. This was made from a old Maxima rear seat and makes a great addition to my living room. You will need to log in to post. Log in

1. Purchased an old massage office chair, but it does not have its attaching plug, where can I find one?

There is not enough information here for me to attempt an answer. Brand name of chair? It could connect directly to 110V AC or it might need a different power source. Try googling the brand name and see what you find. There might also be information stamped near the power socket

2. Choosing an Ergonomic Office Chair Part 1: What is Seat Pan?

Of all the components of an office chair, the seat pan is one of the most critical to get right for optimal ergonomics. After all, the weight of our entire body bares down on the chair's seat; even small changes in the seat's length, width, height, or contours can have a dramatic effect on our comfort levels. This article is part of our "Choosing an Ergonomic Office Chairs" Series: Syncro Tilt and Other Tilt Mechanisms in an Office Chair Explained Types of Lumbar Support for Office Chairs (and What to Choose) Armrests on Ergonomic Office Chairs- What You Need to Know Seat Pan refers to the flat surface area of the chair we sit on. It's attached to the base of the chair that usually come with various levers for common adjustments such as chair height and backrest recline angle. An ergonomically designed seat pan will usually feature a sloped (aka waterfall) edge and slightly hollow center to stabilize the pelvic area and distribute your body weight more evenly. What to Look for in an Ergonomic Seat Pan The BIFMA G1 2013 ergonomic guidelines serves as a great starting point when determining the ideal specs for the most ergonomic seat pan. It uses a large civilian dataset that is more reflective of the current general population than other guidelines such as csa-z412. As an ergonomist, I would never say a seat pan should be exactly 16" deep or 14" tall, as that would ignore the fundamental fact that no two bodies are alike, and what works for one person will fail miserably for another. However, guidelines produced by BIFMA or the OSHA are based on what works for most people. If your body is on the much larger or smaller size, use the baseline suggestions and then extrapolate the extra adjustments needed to fit your body. The following are the recommended specs in a seat pan on an ergonomic chair: Like everything, the devil's in the details. Let's look closer at each of the important items to check off when it comes to seat pan selection. The height of the seat pan is measured from the back of your knees to the ground. Proper seat pan height is critical to prevent undue pressure from building up in your thighs and hips. If the seat is too high, circulation is cut off from the underside of your thighs as your legs dangle, while if it's too low, increased pressure is applied to the hip and sitting bones. Choose an ergonomic chair with an adjustable seat pan in the range of 15" to 22" to accommodate most people. Adjust the seat pan so your two feet are firmly touching the ground, with your knees bent at a 90 degree angle. Seat Pan depth is measured as the horizontal distance between your buttock and the back of your knees. Proper seat pan depth ensures your body is properly aligned in the seat and against the backrest of the chair. If the seat pan depth is too short, a good part of your knees will be unsupported as you sit. On the other hand, a long seat pan will prevent your back from fully resting on the backrest of the chair, all the while applying excess pressure on the ends of your thighs. Look for a seat pan depth of between 17" to 21" to fit most people. Ergonomic chairs with a 2" adjustable seat depth are ideal to accommodate different sitting positions and people. In the end, the ideal seat pan depth is where there is a 2-3 fingers gap between the edge of the seat and your inner thighs. Seat pan width simply refers to the width of the seat on a chair. The proper seat pan width ensures that you are able to enter and exit a chair easily, and just as importantly, that the armrests (if any) are spaced appropriately so that you are not extending or contracting your arms to rest on them. BIFMA guidelines suggest a seat pan width of 19.2" to fit most people. OSHA simply suggests that the seat width should be at least the width of your thighs, which you can easily measure yourself. If the chair you are purchasing comes with armrests (which it should), also measure the distance elbow to elbow and compare it with the horizontal distance between the armrests on the chair to make sure they match. The seat pan angle should not be confused with backrest angle, though in chairs with synchronous tilt, the two reclines in tandem. The ideal resting angle for the seat pan should be between 0 degrees and 4 degrees as suggested by BIFMA. OSHA also recommends a chair that can forward tilt up to 5 degrees, which lessens the strain on your thighs and waist as you lean forward to perform certain tasks. Currently very few chairs on the market support forward tilt, with the Herman Miller Aeron and some of its alternatives among the elusive list of chairs that do. Last but not least, we arrive at the contouring in a seat pan. Look for a seat that slopes downwards at the edge to reduce pressure build up around the soft tissues of the thighs. Proper seat contouring all around the seat pan also makes a huge difference. Half of your body weight when sitting down is supported by an 8% area under the sit bones. A seat with a slightly hollow center can more evenly distribute this weight across your entire buttock.

3. What kind of steel should I use for supports for an office chair?

use something thats about 1/8 inch thick in the walls, it will support, 500,lbs