Wednesday, October 24, 2012

A Chair in the Oval Office

I bought the chair above for my computer desk over a year ago from Office Depot on Ala Moana Blvd. for $180. Assembly required. Since the very day I put it together, it has not appreciated me sitting on it. Yes, It, apparently has a temperment all to it's own. When I get up, the chair swivels, specifically the seat of the chair points to a different direction from whence I left it. It's a swivel chair so it's suppose to swivel. However, it should only swivel while you're seated and and only becuz you turned it to face in another direction. Not swivel on it's own digression. Why? Becuz when you sit back down without looking, you end up sitting on the armrest. Either the left armrest or the right armrest. It feels the same to the back of your tigh. Or, okole (butt) for that matter. It's plain aggravating. I do get up from the chair frequently, for example, just reaching for things that are out of reach. I know better to look before I sit, but I forget due to poor memory. Not funny.

Anyways, I finally got tired of it. Over a year of this rigamarole, take it from me, you do get tired of the same routine after thousands of what would you call it, musical chairs solitaire, etc., day in day out, until you're only this much away from tossing it into the Ala Wai canal or mailing it to Clint Eastwood, maybe that. What I did was I turned the chair upside down and there's a retention clip at the very bottom of the column that houses the gas chamber. The column connects the seat part of the chair to the five-legged base. The retention clip, there's a protective washer that backs up the retention clip there to prevent the edges of the retention clip from grinding away the metal component as the chair swivels clockwise or counter clockwise. The secondary purpose of the washer is to provide the necessary friction to keep the chair from swiveling on it's own. Unfortunately, the washer that was used wasn't thick enough to keep things tight enough and in turn provide enough friction. If the factory had used a nut instead of the slip-on retention clip you could just re-tighten the nut a few turns. I did try facing the five-legged base to different clock positions to see if the heavy point of the seat, logically the backrest portion, was not in fact swiveling to the lowest point of the floor since all floors aren't perfectly level, and the five legs of the base may not be perfectly level to each other which might explain in more scientific terms why the seat of the chair swivels on it's own instead of remaining at the incumbent position, albeit you would tunk that if off level-ness was the culprit there would be a specific compass direction that the seat wouldn't swivel at all if it was already pointed in that direction much like a lazy susan on a level table but not so. Back to the washer. I detached the aforementioned retention clip. Then stacked a second backup washer behind the retention clip to provide the required friction. That simple.

[edit] I did ask the floor salesman about how to prevent the chair from swiveling on it's own, but he didn't have a clue as usual. That's what I meant by, "That simple."

*Found this pic on the Internet today. Note the single backup washer under the retention clip.

2 comments:

Kay said...

Next time I have trouble with furniture or anything else, I'm going to ask you to come on over, Ron.

RONW said...

Kay- yea, right. But save this .... How to...Chair part name...Tips and Hints