Ski Chair and Robot

by RowanCant in Outside > Backyard

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Ski Chair and Robot

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My mum had a large pile of old skis and she said to me, "I want you to make something out of these". I wasn't exactly sure what to make, but I remembered that I had seen some chairs before and I knew that mum had a nice old chair with rotten boards, so it seemed like a good fit.
Then I had a big bucket full of bindings. The skis were all from the 80s and 90s and reminded me of some of the starwars films and other robots. So, I started bolting them together.

Supplies

An old chair
About 5 sets of skis
A few bits and bobs
A hacksaw, grinder, or reciprocating saw.
Screwdrivers
A drill

Removing the Bindings

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Honestly, experiment... All the ones I did were different. There is no method. Basically, look for screws to undo, some will be in hidden and weird places.

Drag Out the Old Chair and Take It Apart.

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Again, depends on your old chair, but this one was just bolts on each end and some angle brackets.

Cut Your Skis.

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Harder than it sounds. Find the right length for your skis, they all have some strange shapes near the ends that you want to try avoid. So make them the longest practical length for the set you have.
Also, skis are pretty tough... so they take a fair bit of cutting. Make sure you guard your eyes from shards of fiber glass and metal. Probably doesn't hurt to wear gloves too.

Drill the Bolt Holes and Assemble

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Harder than it sounds... You actually can't just drill in the centre of all the skis, because the chair's sides are cast iron. I'm not keen on drilling through cast iron and wrecking all my drill bits, so I had to lay out all the skis and drill the holes to fit the current holes in the side of the chair.

I started at the bottom on both sides of the chair and worked my way up. The shape of the sides makes it self stabilizing, which is pretty cool. Then just mount the angle brackets and DONE!!!

Play With the Bindings!

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This was entirely experimental. All the bindings were fairly square shapes, so they stacked really easily. I stacked them up and did a bit of balancing to see how robot-like I could make them. I was pretty much able to stack and force the whole thing and then I just drilled a few holes and screwed a few things or cable tied a few things to make it more permanent.