Turn an Old Game Chair Into a Shop Stereo!

Hello fellow inventors, tinkerers and hackers!  Welcome to the BozzLab.  This is my first instructable so I hope you enjoy.  If you are like me you love videos games, you bought one of those game chairs cuz you were single and you thought it would be great to have sound rumbling under your back end.  But times have changed, your wife can't take that chair in the living room anymore and you can really only sit on it four about 20 minutes before things go numb.  Trash it!  NOOOOOOO!  or give it to a kid to use, but if you can't....

Remember those rumbles under your bundles?  Let's turn that into a sweet shop stereo for your phone or Mp3 player.  I did this project with some scraps I had laying around, but if you had to buy the wood, a simple $7 piece of ply at a local Ace would do fine.  But first we GUT!  

I tried to be as careful as possible (as I always do) cuz you never know what you may be able to use.  Also I am always curious how things are constructed.  How its Made?  Factory Made?  History channel?  Anyone?.....  ok back to the gut.  I started from the fold (this was a collapsable floor rocker) peeling back the fabric.  There in the bottom was what we need...two small speakers, a sub, small electronics and the outer controls on the side of the chair.  They were a pain to get out, but you need to be careful no to damage the components if you want to re-use them.

Ok no need to show all the pics i took, you get the idea.  These things are not made of the nicest cut wood or anything so don't expect to do much with that unless you can replane and clean them up (not worth it in my opinion but if you are bored or need scrap...have at).  So what did we get?  

- Some material that I may repurpose into a cover for my sewing machine, maybe a seat cover?  who knows?
- Foam
- Two hinges
- Two rubber feet
- Velcro
- Our stereo components
- speaker covers
- crappy scrap wood

I wanted to make this into just a simple box design since it is only for my shop.  You can get as crazy as you want.  This could be made into a decent unit for inside the house as well with an acoustic design, made of nice wood and a warm stain/metal look...mmmm  Your budget is the limit.  Again I only used some scrap ply and particle board.  The only items I bought were the rubber feet for the bottom (remember this chair only yielded two, but they were too big), a metal bracket for a handle (you will see that later but it was only a few dollars) and the spray paint.  

The tools I used were a router, a drill, jig saw, circ saw, some clamps, a screw gun, air compressor nail gun, a C-wrench and the most indispensable tool in my shop...my Jawhorse.  If you don't have one...it's pretty kick ass!

For the front I just it roughed out with the two speakers on top and controls below in the middle.  I laid it out by look more than by mathematical division.  I used a drill and a jig saw to cut out the holes and then used a router to make a shallow recess for the speaker covers to sit into.  This isn't necessary, just cosmetic.  I left the controls flush with the unit cuz I like the metal bolted look it has.  The speakers had these plastic housings that extended back a few inches.  Rather than mess with this and ruin the speakers and because they may help the cheap speakers sound better, I left them be.  The controls had a strange shape to the electronics, so I had to modify this as I went, shaving here and there so as not to force it through and damage something.

For the sides and bottom they were just simple cuts.  The back has a hole that I drilled out for the bandpass?(i think its called).  there was a plastic insert that connected into the sub from the outside (you will see this soon).  The top has two holes drilled into them about 4" apart to fit the bracket.  I also had these thin scraps that I cut to a rough length to give me corner support and have something to air nail into.  The bottom is a piece of particle board that I had.  Overall the dimensions of the box ended up being 13" wide x 14" tall x 11 1/2" deep.  Again this was just roughed out based on the depth of the sub and the rear electronics of the controls.  They were on the same level so they had to have proper clearance.  I assembled the sides and rear, leaving the front and top until I install the components.

The handle is just a bracket that I found at the hardware store.  I bought the additional two nuts and the two washers for the top.  you will see this better in assembly.

First...paint!

So I had some fun here.  There were some mishaps, but also some successes.  I am not the best user when it comes to spray paint, but I was doing this in our small garage in the cold COLD Illinois weather cuz I can't stand being couped up inside and I got sick from it...YOUR WELCOME!

Anyway, I stayed true to that original nature of the chair with my colors and besides who doesn't like red and black.  I made some stencils on Photoshop and went to it.  The breeze made for some smudging while drying to I had to do some touch ups with tape.  I think the mask came out much better than the front and the other side, but you'll see that next.  Half-life fans?

Ok now that everything is dry, all the parts screw into the back and front.  I put the sub in first matching it up to that back hole (there is that plastic piece I talked about), there is a small hole for the power cable to exit (I used a white cable plug from another deconstruct to fill the hole space), and the electrinics went above that.  Then to the front I screwed the controls and speakers.

Here is the top with the handle assembled, keeping the washers and two nuts on top.  (giggle). 

This chair also had one of those large power pack plugs (ugh), but that can be unplugged from the unit for easy travel.

Once you have everything in place, you can screw on the top, plug in a phone or mp3 player via an input cable and blast the beats!!!!

(here you can see the sloppy painted TB and 21 on the side.  oh well its just for the shop)

HAVE FUN and remember inside everything is something greater!