Metal Chair: Part 3

Alrighty, this is the final post about this chair! You can catch up here and here if you missed the last two. We last left off with the base completed and some of the structure for the back and seat cut out. 

As per my teacher's instructions, I made a cross out of very dense metal, with a circle in the center to put bolts through. This got welded into the base, and a piece of flat metal went on the bottom to cover it up.  

Then I did the upholstery! I got foam and pleather at Fabric Outlet (obvs). The foam was glued to the wood (see the last post), and the pleather was wrapped around that and stapled to the back. Staple gun for the win, that was probably the funnest part of this project! 

Here's what the seat looked like with the cushion, before I glued the cushion in: 

Then I welded the back and seat to each other. I cut half-circles into the bottom of the bar, so it could wrap around the back bar of the seat. This is similar to how the top of the base is constructed. 

The adjustable height hardware was bolted to the bottom of the seat. 

And I cut out a circle, welded it to the top of the base, and bolted the other half of the hardware in. 

And then I spray-painted! Primer, then a paint called "Oil-Brushed Bronze" and then a matte finisher. We were going for an old, cast-iron look, and the imperfections in the metal helped with this.  

I covered up the inside with paper, so as not to get paint where I would be gluing the cushions. 

Here's what the chair looked like post-paint. It's not twisted down all the way, which is why it looks a little awkward. 

At this point, the school year was over and my project wasn't exactly done. So I took all the pieces home and glued it there! Here's a whole bunch of photos of the final product: 

I hope there weren't too many photos for these last few posts, but I really liked getting in the practice of taking process photos for this project. It has served me well, especially for new design projects at college. (Unfortunately, this chair couldn't come live with me in my dorm :/)

See you in two weeks!
Taft WK