My first welding project: a reclining sofa brace

Non-car discussion, now for everyone
Post Reply
kevm14
Posts: 15200
Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:28 pm

My first welding project: a reclining sofa brace

Post by kevm14 »

Of all things...

I decided to flip our 3 seat reclining sofa over to vacuum all the unbelievable garbage that is under there. The right reclining seat, my favorite spot, has been very...cranky lately. It felt like the mechanism was binding or so sloppy that stuff was hitting other stuff. It clunks and clanks and is hard to put back. So when I flipped it over to vacuum I took a look at the linkage.

I found a broken brace.
20191224_105430.jpg
Not expecting much I thought it would be a fun reason to try my new (used) welder. So I wire wheeled the edges to prepare. Next I needed to unpack my welding goodies. Gloves, slag hammer (unneeded for this job) and fancy mask. I had to take the thing nearly completely apart to see that it shipped with batteries. I tried it on the sun and it seemed to work.

Then I set up for welding. A comedy of issues revealed themselves one by one.

I started by wanting to fix the door on the welder. It was dropped at some point and Mike never figured out why the door wasn't closing. Well I did. I did a little metal tweaking but the biggest issue was the plastic hinges were swapped on the wrong sides!! So it put the hinge axle at the wrong location. Door works great now.
20191224_141753_HDR.jpg
20191224_135026.jpg
20191224_135052.jpg
20191224_135100.jpg
First, my mask was not auto dimming, which I guess could have blinded me if I didn't immediately notice. Turns out the batteries are very low. Ugh.
20191224_140750.jpg
Before that failed it did pass the sun test though. This must have been about all the batteries had left.
https://youtu.be/oQ9j14Qt_EU

Here's a Daft Punk looking helmet man.
20191224_141316.jpg
But while I was attempting to weld, I also noticed that the wire was not feeding properly. It was jamming up. I had to take the end of the gun apart, but the wire seemed jammed in the motor mechanism. So I removed the gun from the machine which took some experimentation until I figured out how to do it. Eventually I was able to pull the wire back through the gun and sleeve.

Ran new wire into the gun...which was now feeding properly. Then I attempted to actually do my welding using the close my eyes method. I will say I did not expect brilliant results with flux core, never having welded, and not being able to look at my work when welding.
20191224_145439.jpg
20191224_142932.jpg
20191224_142937.jpg
20191224_142941.jpg
20191224_144444.jpg
I tried B current (A-D) and 1.5 wire speed but then I could tell that it wasn't penetrating. So I cranked it up to D and a wire speed of 3 and that actually sounded/felt much better.

Made some ugly welds, wire wheeled, ground and so on. If it holds, it does not matter what it looks like. I am not even going to paint it because it's inside. It will probably patina and then that's about it.
20191224_161830.jpg
20191224_161838.jpg
20191224_162509.jpg
20191224_162517.jpg
20191224_162532.jpg
20191224_162541.jpg
I reattached it. The best part is...the mechanism works almost like new. I am genuinely surprised it made that much of a difference considering it is a horizontal brace but it obviously stabilizes the linkage.
20191224_195834.jpg
20191224_200141.jpg
Then I ordered some CR2450s from Amazon.

I think the funniest part of the story is how farmy this was. It's a farmer thing to have to fix your equipment before you can use it.
Adam
Posts: 2240
Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 9:50 pm

Re: My first welding project: a reclining sofa brace

Post by Adam »

So is the mask not auto dimming or are the batteries just dead?
kevm14
Posts: 15200
Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:28 pm

Re: My first welding project: a reclining sofa brace

Post by kevm14 »

Probably batteries. I should check their voltage. The low battery light came on. It dims in sun but only for a second and that light comes on.
kevm14
Posts: 15200
Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:28 pm

Re: My first welding project: a reclining sofa brace

Post by kevm14 »

One battery was 2.5V and lost voltage simply on the current draw through my thumb. The other battery was 0.5V....

With brand new batteries, it works perfectly. Well, I only tested it looking outside but the low battery light never came on so I am certain it will work during welding. Yay.
dochielomn
Posts: 216
Joined: Wed Oct 30, 2013 9:16 am

Re: My first welding project: a reclining sofa brace

Post by dochielomn »

I suppose just trying to find a replacement brace (as oppose to welding the old one back together) was out of the question? :)
kevm14
Posts: 15200
Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:28 pm

Re: My first welding project: a reclining sofa brace

Post by kevm14 »

I think that would be impossible. The only other thing I could have done was try to fabricate something up with drilling/cutting/bending metal stock and nuts/bolts or something. This was a perfect application for welding.

It is still holding. I should probably pull it out to paint it though.
dochielomn
Posts: 216
Joined: Wed Oct 30, 2013 9:16 am

Re: My first welding project: a reclining sofa brace

Post by dochielomn »

Not trying to stop you from having fun with your welding gear, just asking if you could find the part somewhere. Not sure if u contacted the manufacturer or just look online about the chair and even see if parts are sold for it.
kevm14
Posts: 15200
Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:28 pm

Re: My first welding project: a reclining sofa brace

Post by kevm14 »

I did not. It is a Bob's Discount Furniture 3 seat from like 2006. In fact you may have helped me move it in.

I have no idea how I would even find out if this was available. If it was even available the price would probably be astronomical for such a random part.
dochielomn
Posts: 216
Joined: Wed Oct 30, 2013 9:16 am

Re: My first welding project: a reclining sofa brace

Post by dochielomn »

I asked because I've done random things like look for a part just to see if it was out there. Sometimes, I find it, other times, I don't. And yeah, sometimes when I find the part, it might be half the price of the entire object that it goes into and then it becomes a question of, do I want to spend 50% of the actual price on this one piece vs. just replacing it as a whole (for much smaller items than a couch or chair clearly).
Post Reply