£3.55 scope chair.

[Tiny Clanger]

Having managed to make a small but very rigid triangular table for my Heritage dob to stand on back in lockdown #1 , I have been using it standing up ... but somewhat leaning over, which , especially in the really cold weather , occasionally caused my lower back to suggest to me that this was not a wise pose to hold.

I'd read folk saying it is easier to keep your eye where it needs to be when you sit to observe,and tried it out , using an old plastic stool which lives in the shed and has been stood on while decorating, used as an impromptu saw horse etc. Yes, sitting was better, but the single height of the stool was often wrong ... I needed an adjustable height seat.

I checked out the purpose made observing chairs, which were often lovely looking, but insanely overpriced . I studied seats intended for ironing (something I don't do) drummer's stools , etc etc. Didn't much like of any of them. The internet coughed up several sets of plans, most of which required a panoply of table saws, jig saws, and for all I know , see saws ,huge sheets of expensive plywood , a workshop, and carpentry skills.  I have none of those.

What I do have is a panel saw , an electric drill, some screwdrivers and a small collection of bits of wood, mostly from a wooden frame Ikea sofa which survived for about 18 years before gravity killed it . Parts of the sofa went into the dob table, but most of it was still there, cluttering up the  corner of the shed . When I came across this excellent , and relatively simple design by Jerry Oltion  http://www.jerryoltion.com/observing_chair.htm   I realised this could actually be within my extremely limited carpentry capabilities, and there might even be appropriate bits of ex-sofa wood to make it ... and by luck I happened to have had salvaged a length of 25mm diameter dowel which was heading to a bin at work several years ago, I had half a box of screws left from flooring the loft and some bolts from refurb.ing a garden seat ... 

So, I set about making something roughly along the lines of Jerry's seat, with the front upright height dictated entirely by the long pieces which formed the sofa frame, the rungs are the slats which filled in the sofa back, the sides of the moveable seat are one of the sofa arms ... the flat top of the seat is part of a venerable bit of plywood which came from my grandad's workshop, where it was a paint can shelf. A couple of old plastic doorstops make the back strut feet

The whole construction was put together in a 'make it up as you go along' kind of way, the only critical measurement I took from Jerry's online seat (with a bit of trigonometry after converting his measurements to post 19th century sensible metric ones) was that the front uprights should be at a 60 degree angle, the rest of the dimensions were  based on whatever happened with the material at hand. I had to buy just one piece of wood, for the rear uprights (Wickes 22x47mm 1.8m , £3.55)

More by luck than good judgement or skill, the thing actually works, supports my weight, adjusts easily, is sturdy, stable and safe, folds for storage, and is not  so embarrassingly ugly or wonky that I am reluctant to share a few photos . I still need to sand down some of the rougher reclaimed timber, give the whole a couple of coats of whatever varnish I can find in my big box of paint cans, and get hold of some suitable material to cover the closed cell foam I have to make a seat pad,  I have not included the  £6 I had to spend on a 25mm wood drill bit, a size I did not already own, but if I did, it still cost under a tenner 🙂

It may not be pretty (who cares, it will be used in the dark after all) , but it has given a purpose to many 'it will come in useful one day' oddments, cost hardly anything, developed some skills , and given me an interesting project and a glow of thrifty pride.

First photo (feline despot for scale) shows the frame with some rungs in place, as I looked to see if I should add more rungs below or above. The next picture shows the completed seat with lower rungs added and the seat part, which took me a day to make ... the placing of the dowels is critical and fiddly to decide .

 

the final photo showing the seat at a low setting to observe with the heritage dob at an unlikely low alt. , but you never know ...  and that lower rung braces the legs

Heather

Edited April 27, 2021 by Tiny Clanger
trying to get the photos side by side, which is how they look in the composing window ...

[Basementboy]

This is an inspiration. Take that, Ikea!

As for "it may not be pretty", I object – I think it's a slick as hell piece of design

 

[Jasonb]

Love it Heather, will you make me one?

 

[Tiny Clanger]

14 minutes ago, Basementboy said:

This is an inspiration. Take that, Ikea!

As for "it may not be pretty", I object – I think it's a slick as hell piece of design

 

Thanks,, all Hail Jerry Oltion, it is a smart idea, and well explained on his site.

The similar style chair plans which start by drilling a row of 25cm holes in a straight line * on a piece of plywood, then cutting out two matching side pieces* accurately*  with a neat half a hole in each* to make sides with semicircular holes to engage with the seat dowel are tidier looking, but Jerry's design works with much less faff .

If Ikea ever see the observing chairs of the Geoptik  or Berlebach type design, I reckon they could easily knock them out by the million at a point roughly 10% of the asking price ....

 

 

* I couldn't do that

[Tiny Clanger]

8 minutes ago, Jasonb said:

Love it Heather, will you make me one?

 

 🙂

Postage might be expensive (and slow ), besides,I only had the one sofa ...

[blameTECHIE]

"looks up price of charity shop sofa and shipping"

it looks great and definitely something I want to have a go at, but not sure I could make it to the same standard as yours @Tiny Clanger

[Tiny Clanger]

32 minutes ago, blameTECHIE said:

"looks up price of charity shop sofa and shipping"

it looks great and definitely something I want to have a go at, but not sure I could make it to the same standard as yours @Tiny Clanger

Really, I am an inexpert, badly equipped, ham fisted , very approximate , unable to saw straight kind of bungler,  If I can make it, anyone can.  Just do it !

The truly important cuts needed are short, so sawing ineptitude doesn't matter. Inaccurate drilling (I'm good at that) doesn't matter if you drill the rungs on their own, then lay them in place on the side pieces, check they are at right angles and properly spaced (by simply lying the dowel across them) , then mark through the holes into the long side support with a bradawl to show where the pilot hole for the screws needs to be made. .Once the front ladder part was finished, the back section just needs to be strong enough to take the stress, I fixed a couple of bars across to get the width right, then screwed a chunk of cut off pine shelf board low down where Jerry says you need it to be strong.

When I thought I might not have sufficiently long bits of reclaimed wood to hand, I mused on the possibility of buying and butchering a cheap wooden ladder-ended shelf unit like the Ikea Ivar ...  insanely I suspect that would actually work out cheaper than just buying the wood from B&Q

 

[scotty38]

That's an excellent piece of work.

[Stu]

Wow, that looks excellent Heather! Really nicely put together and will definitely make your observing much more comfortable and relaxed. More productive as a result I should think.

I’m a big advocate or ‘make it up as you go along’!! 👍👍

[Zermelo]

A thing of beauty, Heather.
Another thing to add to the astro task list!

[Tiny Clanger]

2 hours ago, Stu said:

Wow, that looks excellent Heather! Really nicely put together and will definitely make your observing much more comfortable and relaxed. More productive as a result I should think.

I’m a big advocate or ‘make it up as you go along’!! 👍👍

Thanks.

It could hardly be less comfortable than the icy night (that Arctic air blast which gave fabulous transparency) when conditions allowed me to get remarkably clear views of Bodes & the Cigar galaxies, and my first ever sight of the Ring Nebula , all from my suburban back garden.

Unfortunately I'd not noticed the ice in the dimple pattern on the top of the makeshift plastic stool, which melted as I sat on it and cut short my observations as the icy damp soaked into the seat of my trousers  ...

As the £3.55 chair folds up nice and flat, it stores neatly indoors, so should avoid that particular problem 🙂

[Spile]

Looks great and is very similar to the Denver chair which I use.

Edited May 1, 2021 by Spile

[Swoop1]

Very tidy and pleasant looking chair that Heather!

You decry your obvious skills. Ever thought about setting up an astro chair making business?

[Tiny Clanger]

3 hours ago, Swoop1 said:

Very tidy and pleasant looking chair that Heather!

You decry your obvious skills. Ever thought about setting up an astro chair making business?

Oh lord no !

In my make it up  as you go along mode, it took me a week , with brief bursts of sawdust production interspersed with a lot of sit downs with coffee to try and work out how to do the next bit , I'm not a natural thinker-in-3D , plus have the attention span of a goldfish, therefore a tendency to blunder on and do stupid things that paint me into a corner. So probably not the ideal profile for an astro chair entrepreneur 😉 .

Don't get me wrong, I'm proud of having turned my pile of bits of sofa frame into a viable seat, and I enjoyed the process and the learning curve, but my message here isn't 'look how wonderful I am at this carpentry lark', because I'm really not , what you should read in this is :

Practically anyone with a handsaw, drill , bits of wood, and some screws and bolts can make a seat like this using Jerry's web page as a basis for their plan.

Come on people , it's a wet Bank Holiday Monday, with a wet windy week in prospect, give it a go !

Heather

[fwm891]

Inspiring stuff. The number of times I've tried (slowly) to straighten up after viewing something at an eyepiece (doesn't happen too often!) and been put off looking at something lower down knowing that I need to straighten up again afterwards. I have the skills just never thought to much about solving the problem....

Thanks @Tiny Clanger

[Tiny Clanger]

21 minutes ago, fwm891 said:

Inspiring stuff. The number of times I've tried (slowly) to straighten up after viewing something at an eyepiece (doesn't happen too often!) and been put off looking at something lower down knowing that I need to straighten up again afterwards. I have the skills just never thought to much about solving the problem....

Thanks @Tiny Clanger

Do it !

There are more elegant designs available on the internet , but Jerry Oltion's one has to be the easiest , apart from maybe this one. which I rejected on the grounds that my available to recycle wood did not include wide enough planks, I reckoned I would very probably fall over backwards off it, and it seemed ... lacking in ambition   https://www.stark-labs.com/craig/lybar/lybar.html

Heather

[Tiny Clanger]

Before the completely predictable Bank Holiday rain set in, I managed to give the seat frame a sand down and a couple of coats of clear varnish (it was that or the blackboard paint left over from making the st80 nice inside , and if I'd used that  I'd never have found the chair in the dark ...) . It's not made a huge difference to the appearance of the wood, but I hope it will make the chair a little more durable , given that it is a jumble of softwoods .

Then, after a little online begging and some bartering with a friend who has an excellent collection of various craft materials, I got my hands on some dark blue vinyl type material suitable for upholstering the 'scope chair seat , added a couple of layers of closed cell camping mat to give maybe 5cm of padding, and set about shooting it to death with my staple gun . The corners are very amateur , but my backside doesn't care, the bit it interfaces with is nicely padded  🙂 So , update : the chair has now cost me a total of  £3.55 and half a dozen tomato seedlings 🙂

Heather

Edited May 5, 2021 by Tiny Clanger

[Basementboy]

And the cost of the staples. Don't forget the cost of the staples.

(This is truly excellent.)

[Tiny Clanger]

A small update to  show how the 'scope chair is evolving .  I completely forgot to post this photo after I took it a few weeks ago.  I added a padded headrest, after finding I could set the chair up with the front & back at an obtuse angle and use it as a sort of semi reclined binocular using seat, but I needed a head rest to make it comfortable.  Used this way the seat   goes on the lowest setting.

Because that extra horizontal near the top made the front section look out of balance, I added a low bar as well, which handily works as a footrest when the seat is set high . For no better reason than I was in carpentry mode , found a bit of shelf offcut the right size, and it looked right, an extra strengthening panel went on the back too.

You can't see this in the pictures, but I'd been using a bolt and wingnut to secure the strut which keeps the 'ladder' open and at a fixed angle when used with a telescope, but found it a bit faffy to set/undo in the dark, I kept losing the wingnut . In the box of oddments in the shed I found a small staple from a cheap hasp & staple ( intended for, but never used with, a padlock) and a spring loaded mini keyring type hook  which have replaced the bolt and make it much easier to just click the strut in place. I was thinking of how to adapt the strut length for binocular recliner mode, maybe add a cord , but my garden's grass is so bumpy there seems no danger of the chair legs sliding apart  !

Heather

[banjaxed]

When are you going to fit the armrests ?  😀

[boulderbelly]

how about a  coffee cup holder🤔

[Gogleddgazer]

As a cabinet maker I am loving the inspiration this thread is providing - time to move away from Adirondack chairs and jewellery boxes for a short time in order to make myself something for observing!

[Tiny Clanger]

59 minutes ago, boulderbelly said:

how about a  coffee cup holder🤔

You may wonder ... on a thread about purchasing ready made chairs there was a post yesterday with an interesting link to a German manufacturer whose chair has an optional clip on table .... it has got me thinking .... 🙂

[Tiny Clanger]

12 minutes ago, Gogleddgazer said:

As a cabinet maker I am loving the inspiration this thread is providing - time to move away from Adirondack chairs and jewellery boxes for a short time in order to make myself something for observing!

Do it, and please post pictures, I'd love to see a really nicely made chair, mine is fairly rough and clumsy and as far as carpentry goes I'm a bodger (but not in the old chair related meaning of that word 🙂  )

Heather

[Gogleddgazer]

I suspect there will need to be a functional prototype first to iron out design issues, - Cchairs are notoriously tricky to get right, even simple ones for sitting at a table. Thiis will be an interesting diversion from other endeavours. Watch this space.......