Sigh.
It had one broken leg, but otherwise perfectly good, with nice nubby upholstery and really really comfortable padding on the bottom and back. I decided to experiment to see if I could replace the leg, or legs, and get a serviceable reading chair out of this freestyle find.
The first step was to examine the broken/missing leg and see if it could be replaced. All it had was a bolt sticking out from the corner. I was able to remove this pretty quickly with some pliers.
I looked on the manufacturer website (Steelcase) to see if they sold replacement legs, no luck.
Without the tools to manufacture a matching replacement leg out of wood I decided it would be easiest to replace all the legs. Of course this was an option because I had found some off of a couch being discarded....
Unfortunately when I removed the remnant bolt from its hole I learned that the existing pre-drilled holes were far too wide to match the threads on my replacement legs. No worries, that is why there are leg installation kits.
Yes, I confess, this was not a total freestyle, I did buy some supplies. I even contemplated buying a better drill because the (free) one that have is not very powerful, in the end it wasn't necessary but it might have changed the course of the project a bit. Anyway, back to the legs replacement.
Let's inspect the bottom of the chair. Zooming in one one leg you can see that the black dust cloth on the bottom covers up something braced against the leg.
This small piece of wood prevents the original legs from rotating after they have been properly aligned. These and other elements of the original construction attest to the keen attention to detail, this was probably an expensive piece of office furniture in its original life.
In order to place the replacement legs in the corners I had to remove all the small bracing blocks and unscrew the legs. Here is the base of the chair after that stage. (Now I have three small wooden legs in my miscellaneous supplies pile, anyone need them?)
The next step was to attach the new plates. Drilling in the screws for the new plates is what made me wish I would buy a new power drill. I've heard good things about the Milwaukee brand, but never tested one myself.
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| New plate, ready for a new (found) leg |
As you can see in the photo below, the found legs are a pretty close height match for the original legs.
Unfortunately there wasn't enough clearance between the plate and the wood (or underneath the plate) for the leg attachment screw to go in all the way. As a result the legs are not flush with the base of the chair, so there is a little bit of flexibility if the chair is wobbled side to side.
Do I care?
No.
Even with the gap between the leg and the chair base, the legs hold the chair up just fine, and I don't anticipate a lot of sideways stresses being applied to the legs. Certainly not enough stress to snap the metal screw connecting the leg and the base of the chair.
Here is the final product, sitting pretty.
Eventually I made a slipcover for this chair out of a single curtain panel as documented in this post, because the dark upholstery did not match the rest of the room and I wanted to cover up the slightly unsightly legs. Here is the final final product, ready for reading!
Happy freestyling, and don't be afraid of a little furniture surgery!