The Completed Reclining Chair

After some mediocre cushion making, I've finished the chair. I used a less stupid technique of sewing the cushion for the back this time, by covering a foam block with cloth, sewing around 3 of the four sides of the perimeter, then flipping the cover inside out. I then stuffed the foam block into the cloth cover and folded the remaining material into the gap. Didn't bother sewing it shut yet, but it works fine for now and looks great.

Here's the completed chair with cushions, in the standard configuration.

Chair in "Long Day of Work Mode"

 

 Chair in "This Week Sucked Ass Mode"

 

 And the "Sitting Limbo Competitor Mode"

So there we go. I now have chair #2 to add to my collection of chairs made of Magic: the Gathering cards. Of course, now I can't build anything less challenging without appearing to be half-assing anything. I'd rather like to get some more furniture for the rest of the Team Fortress 2 guys so I can play a rousing game of musical chairs, but with firearms to settle disputes of "who gets the last chair".

I tested the chair in full recline mode on the Heavy, with his arms behind his head. Didn't go too well. Chair almost tipped backwards. He's fine with his arms on the arm rests. I anticipated that happening, but didn't expect it to go back that easily. I had angled the rear armrest supports/legs to cover the center of mass better, but it isn't enough for the Heavy.

Time to relax and figure out what's next on the project list. This project didn't contribute much to the gun tech pool, which was unfortunate. There's been a few projects I have on hold due to lack of feasibility. I could either scale it back (which is boring), or level up my tech pool with random projects until I figure it out (like how the TF2 dolls did). However, it did give me some new means of fastening thin moving parts together. Might be handy later.

Making a reclining chair, part 2! Now with padding!

With some plans drafted for the chair sides, we're going to finish the chair. The goal I envisioned is to allow the chair to be dismantled if needed, so I'll be making some weird components. I opted to make some notches in the chair sides to fit the crossmember in the reclining mechanism as a means of holding it together.

Using the lamination techniques outlined a while back, I made some large boards 2 cards wide, one card tall and 4 cards thick using some excess X-Men TCG cards as middle filler (need to whittle down that stack) and a Magic outer covering. These will hide the joining mechanisms. Next bit of action is to make the posts for the armrests. I'll be making these in beam sections to be joined by biscuits and slots, rather than cut out large sections.


Each section is approximately 5mm thick, composed of 4 layers of 4-card thick sections. The inner section has notches cut into it before gluing. The alternative would be to cut the notches along the face, then peel the layers away. The former method allows better control over notch width and depth, as I can measure now and I know the thickness of 4 Magic cards.

There will be three parts to the armrest assembly: the front support, the back support, and the main armrest. After gluing the laminations together, they were sanded flush.

Biscuits and larger support elements were added to the members to allow better control of position when assembled. A similar method was done with the chair back.

With all the parts assembled, the chair is semi-completed. Just needs cushions. The project used up a good deal of cards, which can be seen by the dwindling stack of cards under my monitor. Both stacks used to be the same height.

To make the cushions, I wanted something spongy. Unfortunately, I didn't get what I wanted, so this crappy white plastic packing material I found at work shall do. I cut out a section roughly the shape I needed for the cushion interior.

With some useless fabric, I created a padded outer cover that would make the plastic less horrible feeling. Next step is to wrap it up in the cushion cloth. Something that looked like khaki was used.

This method is really half-assed. Since I won't be seeing the bottom of the cushion ever, I decided to assemble it by stitching it to the seat filler.

Repeat until you have this horrible looking square. Worst thing I've made in a while.

I repeated this method for the leg rest cushion, but with 4 layers of thick fabric, then sewn that to the larger cushion by means of a simple cloth. The middle cloth serves to prevent debris/legs/children from falling into the gap between the leg rest and the chair body. The straps allow me to secure the cushion to the leg rest assembly without glue, so I can remove it if necessary.

And that's the main cushion for the seat. Now, to go make the back seat cushion... then this project will be completed.