Materials
Processes
Welding needs preparation
People call us to fix chairs that break, hoping there's a quick way of welding the broken area. But welding is not as easy as most people think, as you will discover here.
First, there's the preparation of the broken surface. That means cleaning and often grinding away the old weld and creating a groove or notch for effective fusion.
If the chair is covered in material of any kind, such as leather or cloth, I must be able to weld without touching the material. Otherwise, it will melt or burn. To add to the complexity, sometimes, as in the case of the swivel chair below, the nylon bearing was an easy target for melting. Using a flame-proof blanket while I welded saved the fabric from burning or melting.
Leather, cloth & coverings to consider
Designer chairs are sometimes extremely fragile. This chair, manufactured in Norway, is a great example. Its armrest had come away. Just imagine sitting, reclining, and rotating on a stainless-steel tube with a wall thickness of 3/32 inch and a diameter of 7/8 inch.
The armrest had a stripped T-nut, and the machine screw had jammed inside. I stuffed epoxy up into the loose T-nut hole to better secure the armrest. After carefully keeping the intense welding heat away from the fabric and the nylon bearing, I had to untie and re-lace the back and bottom seat.
Hopefully, my client will get more years out of this chair.
Leather on the legs
This chair had leather on the back and the legs. Luckily, I could slip some leather down from the legs and weld the chair to strengthen it. To finish, I glued the leather back in place.
Thin metals can be challenging
These chairs are examples of items without flammable material. The challenge here was to avoid burning through the thin aluminum. This aluminum stool, well-used in a local coffee shop, came in for rewelding.
OLD SPLIT welds repaired
Finally, these two swivel bar chairs needed repair. The welds that bonded the legs to the swivel frame, attached to the seat frame, had split. Luckily, though the tubing was thin, the structural design strengthened these chairs.
