And done

Almost done

 The legs after being powdercoated in textured black. Cheap and good! Professionally powdercoated by, you guessed it, Mr. Powdercoat.

The seat was given a new lease of life. New fabric, new dunlop foam, new decron, new webbing!  Professionally done by Rohan Jago from Nucleus Designs.

Almost done! Except for attaching the two parts together. Pictures above show the seat resting on the base temporarily.

All about metal legs

To attach the legs to the seat, an additional component was needed. This piece will hold the legs together at the top and be fastened to the seat's timber frame with some screws.

The timber frame looked like this from the bottom >>>

The timber frame looked like this from the bottom. The piece would need to fit within this frame and be hidden from view. 

The initial design looked like this. However, there were concerns that there might be too much excess weight. So I redesigned it. To do so, I CADed up the timber frame and printed it out one-to one to use as a template. 

I then positioned scrap metal bars such that they fit within the frame, and at the same time will intersect with the points of contact with the steel rods. 

And I ended up with the above configuration. This is sheer function without form. It was not designed to look pretty (since it's going to be hidden anyway). But by coincidence, I happen to quite like how it sort of mimicks the polygonal shapes of the legs. 

Now we just had to weld them all together. Had some help from Andrew this time. 

I then cleaned up the blobs from the weld with an angle grinder. And to finish it off, some sanding with the file. 

And done! 

Welding it together

The next step was to weld the loose rods together. A jig was needed to hold the rods in its exact place so the welding can take place accurately and quickly. The overall form of the legs is rather complex, different angles, different heights, intersecting components. Hence a detailed jig with accurate information is needed so that the perfect piece can come together. About a day later, I came up with this >>>

Putting the rods in their positions >>>

And finally, welding it!! >>>

Fun times.

Bending Rods

The next stage was to get the steel rods bent. To do so, a one-to-one flat pattern was needed. The components were CADed up and printed on an A0 paper to be used as a template.

8mm steel rods marked and trimmed. It was then heated with an oxy and bent by hand. The bent rods were frequently placed on the template to check if the angles were right. After about 2 days work, the 5 components were finally completed!

Sadly, no pictures were taken that day because bending the rods was a daunting process (my first time) and snapping pictures were the last thing on my mind. But it was an exhilarating experience. And seeing those linear rods take shape using heat and arm power was quite something.

Hole in the Back

The process of removing the back from the seat proved to be too rough for the delicate backrest. Some of the veneers were peeling away. So before cutting a hole in the centre, I had to glue and clamp it back together.

To cut the hole, I drew up several templates to see which sizes would work best aesthetically and structurally. I wanted the form to be quite elegant and visually light. But I had to take into account the stress-points, and the pressure of a person sitting down and leaning back.

Once the shape was locked down, I used charcoal to mark it out directly on the back and was ready to cut it out! After a few practice runs in the definitely-will-not-use-areas, I used a multitool with a blade attachment to cut it out. Cleaned up the edges first with a chisel, and then some sanding with a dremel.

Exposing the Back

Spent a friday trying to remove the backrest from the seat. I had to pull out tons of staples, and after stripping away the fabric and foam, the bent ply was finally exposed.

The surface was really clean. Which was a nice surprise as I had expected to see the foam glued onto the ply. What was horrible though, were the marks left behind by the staples.

The plan originally was to leave the ply as it is, so that the material and construction can be showcased. But after seeing all those unsightly marks, I had to re-evaluate that decision. At this point, I was considering to upholster the back together with the seat. (Initially, I only thought of re-upholstering the seat). It was not only for practical reasons of covering those marks, but I also grew to like the idea of having only two elements (fabric and steel), instead of the initial three elements (timber, fabric and steel).