Cheap modded Ikea 'observing chair'

[Ships and Stars]

This Ikea Molte chair was an eye-watering £9 or so seven years ago when I bought it. My wife disliked it, so it's been outside for well over six years with no protection and was looking sad.

I needed a simple, light adjustable observation chair for my new 300p flextube which is really low for me except near zenith, so decided with a few very easy mods, this would fit the bill. 

I drilled extra adjustment holes in both the post and base to gain as much height as I could. The lowest setting was already adequate. To lock the height in place I now use a phillips screwdriver with a 6mm shaft in place of the original small adjustment key (easy to lose), so height changes are fast and easy in the dark, as the chair now has a decent-sized plastic handle (and a built in screwdriver!).

I then took the plastic seat off, quickly scuff-sanded the base and post, and then sprayed it with leftover red zinc oxide primer from a car repair, dried that with a hot air gun in a few minutes, then laid on a heavy coat of clear lacquer (also leftover stuff). 

One last touch today - a Harris Tweed seat cushion my wife made from a £5 remnants bag from the outlet at Tarbert, Harris a few years ago. Posh eh?! 🤣

Final touch later this week, but not an absolute necessity, is to add some 2-3 cm tall furniture feet on the bottom of the legs to gain an extra few cm height, and a roll of black closed-cell foam is coming tomorrow for my DIY flextube dewshield, (sorry Astrozap, you are too dear!). I'll cut the foam to fit the seat and glue two layers on, with the tweed cushion thrown on top that should be pretty comfy for some relaxed observing 👍 I also have glow in the dark tape, might put a few bands of that on the feet.

NB - If you want to try something similar, note I'm fairly tall so didn't need a ton of height, so you might want to take measurements to determine what your min/max seat height is. Fortunately no one was home to see me do squats while measuring how far off the deck my gluts were, a disturbing scene, no doubt 🤣

What DIY observing chairs do others use?

 

Edited January 26, 2020 by Ships and Stars

[Ciaran Meier]

Nice job !!

Our local Ikea here in Belfast has a "Bargain  Corner" full of ex-display and odd sorts. I like nothing more than a good rummage about while the other half does the "real" shopping. Picked up a load of curtain rails for a few pounds which have the potential for a handy lightweight tripod.   

[banjaxed]

Nice job, looks pretty comfortable.

[Ships and Stars]

Thanks! Took longer to dig out my tools than it did to drill a few holes and paint it. Forecast just went from cloudy to clear from 10pm-2am, will try out seated astronomy tonight! Just need a cupholder for my coffee now...

[Sunshine]

Nifty!

[Pete Presland]

Excellent use of an old chair, up cycling isn't it?