Patio Swivel Chair

[imajones5]

My son’s friend was leaning/resting back on my swivel chair. He was deliberately pushing the chair so far back that he would lift the chair off the ground and use his legs to not tip over. This is the result of a night of relaxing in my chair.

Is this fixable? Welder? Any suggestions. Otherwise it’s in good condition. Not cheap to replace. I hate to toss it if I can repair.

I feel like there’s something I can do.

Thank you.

 

[GeoBruin]

A good welder can do anything. That said, it's a tricky repair. The metal at the break is now fatigued. To make a good repair, that should be cut back to expose good metal (especially if it's aluminum) and cleaned up, including stripping the paint (or likely powder coating) back far enough to make the weld. That's going to expose the metal around the weld.

I guess what I'm getting at is, unless you've got a good friend with some mad tig welding skills, it's probably going to be spendy to hire a welder that can make that repair, and even then, you're going to have bare metal exposed around the welds so it will need to be touched up with some kind of paint, but even then the paint won't match the powerdcoat and will eventually flake off.

If that was my chair, I'd probably attempt the repair but I already have the equipment and would likely do it for the challenge.

 

[gba2331]

I’d be concerned about the next person falling and hurting themselves

 

[Bodj Built]

That's steel judging by the rust. Straightforward and easy repair. Find a piece of tube with an ID that is equal to the OD of that material. Cut a 6" length of the new material in half, lengthwise. Nest the new tube over the ripped holes. This will give you good material to weld the base to. Weld the base on, give it some paint, and off you go.

 

[rlitman]

That's steel judging by the rust...

It's aluminum. You'll need to strip quite a lot of paint to be able to weld this, and if you don't strip enough paint, the heat from the weld is going to burn it up into a mess you'll wish you stripped first.

I own a TIG welder and am fairly comfortable with aluminum. I use it regularly to fix all sorts of my own broken stuff around the house. Not knowing what filler was used originally, and what the base alloy is, I don't think I'd chance a weld repair on this. The safety of that chair likely depends on the heat treatment of the aluminum, and welding on it will leave everything near the weld in a very soft state, so you will up getting hurt sitting on it sooner or later. Usually these things are made from something like 6061 that would require a post-weld heat treatment (which needs to be done before painting). Not a big deal in a factory churning these out by the thousands, but a deal-breaker for repairs and one-offs.

I'm sorry to say that between the effort of stripping and re-painting, you've already sunk more work into it than it's worth before you attempt weld-prep or even welding.

 

[Monza Harry]

Is it steel or aluminum? Looks like steel on one side and aluminum on the other. Steel that can be fixed only a little trouble. Aluminum like said above by @rlitman it is a no win scenario! Welded aluminum is always weaker post weld compared to pre-weld, and pre-weld wasn't strong enough! If it is steel clean the paint/powdercoat back, chamfer, weld, then make a [commonly called] fishplate to wrap around the joint and weld. Major attention must be paid to no undercutting while welding. Then repaint as best as you can to hide the repair. Harry

 

[Bodj Built]

It's aluminum. You'll need to strip quite a lot of paint to be able to weld this, and if you don't strip enough paint, the heat from the weld is going to burn it up into a mess you'll wish you stripped first.

I own a TIG welder and am fairly comfortable with aluminum. I use it regularly to fix all sorts of my own broken stuff around the house. Not knowing what filler was used originally, and what the base alloy is, I don't think I'd chance a weld repair on this. The safety of that chair likely depends on the heat treatment of the aluminum, and welding on it will leave everything near the weld in a very soft state, so you will up getting hurt sitting on it sooner or later. Usually these things are made from something like 6061 that would require a post-weld heat treatment (which needs to be done before painting). Not a big deal in a factory churning these out by the thousands, but a deal-breaker for repairs and one-offs.

I'm sorry to say that between the effort of stripping and re-painting, you've already sunk more work into it than it's worth before you attempt weld-prep or even welding.

How are you so confident in saying it's aluminum? I've seen patio furniture made out of both materials. Even for someone tigging aluminum (yes, I do as well) it's not a difficult fix, nor is it something as critical as you are all making it out to be. Do the same steps for the repair I suggested above and it'll be solid for a long, long time. The issue with the way they built it is not enough surface area, and the part getting fatigued through repeated cycling. Add thicker material, spread it over a wider area, and off you go. It's a chair, not the Eiffel Tower.

PS: no need to chamfer anything this thin.

 

[rlitman]

How are you so confident in saying it's aluminum? ...nor is it something as critical as you are all making it out to be...

1) I know THAT chair. I've seen many of them in stores and have sat in many of them in people's homes. The ring on the bottom is steel, the two horizontal bars bolted to the base are steel truck/buggy springs. The chair upper is aluminum, welded from a mixture of extrusions, tube and castings. You can also clearly see it's aluminum by the whiteness of the extrusion's interior under the break. No mill scale looks like that!

2) Look at how the chair attaches to the base. If this were a 4-legged chair, I'd agree that it's not that critical. This is a "rocking" chair that balances the seat on a pair of buggy springs that flex back. The points that broke are probably the ONLY parts of that chair that take any serious stresses, but that area is both highly stressed AND critical to keeping you from falling on your head. The factory welds failed in tension, and do not appear to be defective, since the metal ripped around the weld, so no, the weld was not lacking in surface area. How exactly do you propose to weld your way around that?

If I had to fix it, I'd throw out that broken U piece attached to the springs, and replace that with a similarly dimensioned steel pipe welded to half-pipe sections that cradle the steel chair tube (so it looks like a capitol I from above), and bolt those on. If those half-pipes are long enough to straddle the broken welds by maybe 2" on each side (so say 6" long), that should take the stress off the aluminum and put it onto your new steel piece. The bonus is you can hide your painted steel under the sweat and don't have to repaint the aluminum. You just need the fabrication skills, but what I'm describing could be done with a 120V FCAW welder. Take a look at hos this similar chair was constructed.