The Office Chair of Theseus

I have an old IKEA office chair that bit the dust sometime last year. I don't recall exactly when I got the chair, but it was new (to me) at the time that I did. Unfortunately, the metal base of the chair (where the chair cylinder attaches to) finally broke. Not being able to sit and use it, I put it aside to throw out when the city did their monthly "bulk" pickup of trash. I then started shopping for a new office chair, and holy smokes, they are EXPENSIVE! Thankfully, I had some extra cash from winning a prize at work, so I used that to purchase myself a "gaming" chair. All was good once again.

Fast forward to today, and the broken chair was still sitting in its corner. Why? Primarily due to me forgetting to take it out on the proper pick up day. I kept kicking myself for not doing so, but now I'm glad I didn't. See, I have a chair at church that was about to get tossed due to the wheels breaking. Used it like this for several months, but I was getting real tired of it. Not fun sitting through a whole church service, running the computer and camera, while sitting on a chair that can't even support you well. As I mused about how much it was going to cost to get a whole new chair, it hit me that maybe I can fix this one. So I checked to see if the wheels can be purchased by themselves, and would you believe it, yes they can! So I bought some (IMHO) good quality wheels, and waited patiently.

The wheels arrived last Monday, and I couldn't wait to try them out! Last week went by pretty quickly, so I didn't have to wait long. Yesterday arrived and I made my way to church. I sat down at my station and the chair dipped to the side. OH! I have the wheels! How'd I forget?! I hurriedly made my way to my car and grabbed the box, then gleefully made my way back to my station. As I'm flipping the chair over with a Joker-like grin, I start ripping out the wheels, one by one, as my friend laughs at me from the sound board.

With the old wheels removed, I start putting the new wheels in. Oh, and they look awesome! Instead of the old plastic wheels, these look like roller blade wheels, so they are smoother and less likely to scratch up the wood floor that is my station. With new wheels in place, I flip the chair and test it out.

Glorious! This chair hasn't been this comfortable in a LONG time! As people start making their way to church, anyone who stops by my station gets a "God bless you" and a story of how great my chair is now!

What does this have to do with my old chair? Well, as I'm driving home, I start to wonder if I can rescue it. Sure, it's old and beat up, with patches of leather tape covering up some holes, but I had that chair for a long time. It's still comfortable, so maybe it's worth rescuing.

I get home and quickly look up office chair parts, and I can, indeed, buy more than just replacement wheels. This is fantastic! I then find that, not only can I buy replacements, I can buy replacements designed to support my weight (I'm a big guy). Stupendous!

I grab the old chair and start to take it apart. The chair mount obviously has to go, as this is the part that broke. The chair cylinder, I remember that it would slowly lower, so I'd have to get a new one of those. The base seemed to be in good condition, but the wheels would need to go as well. Would this be worth repairing if all I could save was the chair itself and the base?

As I kept taking it apart, I realized that I was unable to remove the cylinder from the base. Is my idea doomed to fail? No!, I said. The World Wide Web, to the rescue again! I searched for the office chair's original instructions, and found that the base originally came on its own. Eureka! I should be able to remove it.

As I pulled and tried my best to remove the cylinder, it would not budge. Thinking I had an answer, I sprayed some WD-40 and let it sit for about 30 min. Surely, it'll seep through and allow me to maybe wiggle this cylinder out of the base.

I tried again, but the cylinder still wouldn't budge. Fine... we'll beat this thing out of its place. I swiftly grabbed the hammer from my tool box and started pounding away! Man, this cylinder was in tight, as it still wouldn't budge! I went at it again, but no go! Is my idea doomed from the start? I hit it a couple more times and decided to give it up. While I could buy a replacement base, a good one was around $40, so that would have put me at $117. Still cheaper than a brand new good chair that could hold my weight, but not money I had at the moment.

I sadly placed the lower half of the chair next to the garbage, determined to toss it on Tuesday (as I could fit this part into the garbage bin).

When I got home this evening, I looked at the now deconstructed chair and thought, what the heck... let's give it one more try. I picked up my hammer and started to hammer away at the cylinder, harder than I had hit it before. After about 7-10 hammers, the cylinder popped out! Needless to say, I was ecstatic! The base looked just fine, too!

So that brings us to now. I am going to order the parts and rebuild this old but trusty chair. Granted, it's now on its way to becoming the Office Chair of Theseus (instead of the Ship of Theseus... you get it, right?), but I'm happy that I can actually make this happen!