There are a lot of cool things that people make using cardboard and I wanted to do that too. The only issue was getting large pieces of scrap card board so my project idea took a back seat…. While this idea was fresh in my mind, as luck would have it, my neighbour bought a new LG fridge. Of course, I came to know of his new acquisition only after he discarded the empty cardboard box. I figured that the box was good enough for a sturdy chair. Here is an account of the how I built the chair from scrap cardboard.
I started with a rough sketch of the cutting plan to build this chair (you may get the impression that I started the project immediately when I found the card box – well that was not so…any ways thats a totally different story and i don’t want to digress now)
The sketch is not perfect but contains all information to build this chair. In the center you see the side of the chair – you will need 4 such pieces – 2 per side (just make the chair a bit stronger) – the top of the page shows dimension of the cardboard pieces needed for the sides (overall 4 pieces of 32″x 26″). The bottom two lines show the calculations as to how i arrived at the dimensions of the back and seat of the chair. Note: All dimensions are inches. You can work these out using the dimensions of the side pieces.
Tools? well all you need is a straight edge – a long steel ruler or any other is fine as long as you are able to use it as a cutting guide and have some way to measure lengths. A sharp knife is a must. I used a CRAFSTMAN knife and of course a lot of patience.
The pictures below show all the pieces ready for assembly. The slots positions and the length is dictated by the side piece, the slot width is twice the thickness of the cardboard. The other thing to be aware of is making adjustment to the extent of the card board thickness to figure out positions of all mountain folds and the reason is we are using two pieces of cardboard for each surface. Also note that slot width is four times the thickness of cardboard where the back meets the seat of the chair.
Once the pieces are cut all the hard work is almost done. What remains is assembling the pieces together. Another feature of this chair is that there is no use of glue (I am not sure if this will hold over time, if it does not then I plan to use some hot glue to keep in place). The pieces are held together by mating two surfaces at right angles to each other and at the point where slots are located.
The finished chair is fairly study. weighs around 4 kgs and can easily take a load of 70 (thats my weight) to 80 kgs.
To Run Forever 