World's Best Cardboard Chair

Step 5 Sit and enjoy!

This seat is actually VERY comfortable!

You can improve this whole project by finishing the chair with fabric and batting. It would be very simple to do with this design.

Enjoy!

Yes, that's me.

Comments

[tala910185010]

It's fantastic ! It reminds me of  Frank O' Gehry 's(great architect)  designed chairs .I love it! I hope I could manipulate it soon.Good Luck

[Ryan_C]

I think this instructable is a great one! I would really like to try and make my own counter height chairs. I bought a counter height table that I got on clearance, but the chairs were sold out. All of my existing chairs are not tall enough. If I came up with an outline like this that would make these chairs slightly taller, I think it would work perfect! From my measurements, I have come up with my chair's seat would need to be 24 inches high. If I wanted to add cushions some sort of foam, would I need to compensate for this added feature in my overall height of my cardboard cut-outs?

[barbwired]

i love chairs, and this is so far the best design i've seen! stools would be way easier i'm assuming :) more more....!

[deofthedead]

Ever since I happened to spot the original wiggly chair in my local museum, I've been dying to make one. You are my hero. <3 I'm not even in college, and have no plans to toss out my furniture unless forced to, but that so wouldn't stop me from having a bunch of cardboard chairs. Definitely a +1 from me!

[Mugsy Knuckles]

How is this sustainable? You have to grind up a bunch of trees to make the cardboard in the first place.

[justinhyp]

Good question:

Basically the idea is Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. What most people do not realize is that this motto is in order of importance. You want to reduce before you reuse and reuse before you recycle. This is due to the energy needs of each: Reduce = ZERO, Reuse = SOME, and Recycle = MOST.

SOOO, our point is that we are reducing first (use this before using new futons, etc.) and reuse cardboard. Finally, in the end it can all be recycled, but in the process you have extended the "lifetime" of the cardboard and you have circumvented the use of futons and other throw-away college furniture.

Thats the logic but, of course, as with most projects the message is more important than the product. We want people to think about sustainablity in an innovative way that causes them to reconsider some... preconceptions.

:-)

[Mugsy Knuckles]

"Thats the logic but, of course, as with most projects the message is more important than the product." well, if you think the message is more important than actual facts, there's a word for that too. but I'll stick with "I like your die cutting technique"

[justinhyp]

lol you're goofy

[randomray]

Be serious , he is taking cardboard that was already used and reused it again . Also after using it as a chair it can be recycled again .

[Mugsy Knuckles]

I am being serious, that's not what "sustainable" means. This is called "reuse" or "recycling". Words have meanings. Just because "sustainable" is this weeks eco buzzword doesn't mean what ever anyone is doing is that all of the sudden.

[randomray]

Just do some of your own research . Obviously you really don't care what the answer is you get ; you just want to argue . How about this word for you " conservation " that was used by my favorite ultra-conservative Teddy Roosevelt and many others, before it became fashionable to make common sense care of your resources into fads .

[jlking3]

But even using that semantic logic, cardboard *is* sustainable. Virtually all cardboard is made from fast growing pine trees, discarded paper, lumberyard waste, and cornstarch glue. The major cardboard manufacturers maintain their own forests (the trees are much cheaper when you own the land) and replant seedlings for each tree they cut down. They also use discarded paper and wood pulp that might have been sent to a landfill. Since the definition of "sustainable" is "conserving an ecological balance by avoiding the depletion of natural resources," even virgin cardboard can qualify as sustainable.

[Mugsy Knuckles]

You got something to back up that claim about where cardboard comes from?

[jlking3]

I certainly do: Check out Elliot S. Rohde's "Producing Corrugated Containers Profitably" and "The Corrugated & Paperboard Container Industry: An Analysis of Current Markets and Prospects for Future Growth" from Business Trend Analysts, Inc. for starters (hint, you'll probably actually have to go to a library and probably get a inter-library loan to read them). I can produce 7 more sources for my information and data if you demand, but before I do so, tell me what sources you would accept as valid and authoritative? Your closed-mindedness (indicated by your "kool-aid" statement) seems to me to indicate that you won't accept any data I give you on whatever grounds you can imagine.

I happen to own a small craft soapmaking company, and I've done quite a bit of study on packaging materials because I wanted to make sure I was using the best combination of price and ecology--to the point where if I needed to, I would manufacture it myself.

I may not be the best expert on the subject, but I *have* done my homework on this subject. If your homework consists of just listening to Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, then I suggest you actually learn about the manufacture of kraft paper and cardboard (which is multi-ply kraft paper glued together with cornstarch glue--cornstarch because it's by far the cheapest industrial paper glue, and it just happens to be a sustainable resource in this country).

[Mugsy Knuckles]

In that case, a chair made of regular wood is sustainable too.

[drummonkey92]

no-one said it wasnt ;)

[jlking3]

If it's made of fast growing trees that are replaced at the same rate they are consumed, instead of old world forests which are not replaced at the same rate they are consumed, then yes, according to the definition of "sustainability" which I assume you and I agree on, a chair of "regular wood" is sustainable. If the chair made of "regular wood" is made from a resource that is not replaced at the same rate or a greater rate than the rate in which is was consumed, then it is not sustainable. That's why virtually all bamboo products are sustainable: because bamboo grows so fast that it is easily replaced. Redwoods and maples can be sustainable if you severely limit production for several decades, since they grow very slowly. Pine grows faster, so it is a decent sustainable material. Heck, if we reduced our national consumption of oil to one barrel per year, oil would be a sustainable resource, because new oil would be created very slowly. My point was that your comment about cardboard not being sustainable was inaccurate. Cardboard is a very sustainable material, and the companies that make cardboard wouldn't be able to make it as cheaply as they do if it weren't sustainable. To further your suggestion: if the furniture companies planted their own forests to harvest the wood to make their furniture, and replentished their forest after harvesting the lumber, then their "regular wood" furniture would be sustainable. Same if the furniture manufacturer got it from a lumber manufacturer who practiced sustainability by only harvesting fast growing trees that were replaced with seedlings after harvest. However, it is a small (but growing) minority of lumberyards that actually practice that kind of sustainability--many loggers still participate in clear-cut logging that doesn't replace the removed wood. The desire for old-world-forest hardwoods far outpaces the growth cycle of those trees. Cardboard, on the other hand, is almost completely sustainable because of the factors I mentioned earlier: the major cardboard manufacturers do their own logging from their own forests, and replace the harvested wood as it is logged.

[getsdhc]

...and that`s the cool stuff, another good ecological idea?  yes, I have another: read Theodore Kaczynski , one people that no only tink about nature, him protective her   :D  

[Mugsy Knuckles]

And you're going to have to back those claims up. It's a cool chair, there's no reason to cover it in hippy paint by claiming it's some super eco-freindly product. Stop drinking the Kool-aid.

[justinhyp]

I didn't paint it silly billy!

[jlking3]

See what I wrote above. No kool-aid here. Just careful study of packaging products before this instructible was ever written...including 9 resources that are not readily available on the internet (but are available through your interlibrary loan or your local college library). However, I doubt you'll accept even those sources, because your own Kool-Aid has blinded you to anything that doesn't agree with your narrow-minded worldview. And I'm no hippy--far from it. I'm a card-carrying dues-paying member of the Libertarian Party and have voted LP since 1988. I share my knowledge freely, because that's how you change things. If you deny reality, you can't change it. You're of this right-wing Kool-Aid mindset that if it's environmentally conscious, it must be left-wing liberal anti-business. That's far from the truth when it comes to paper manufacturing. Some parts of the paper making process were VERY environmentally damaging in the past--but the water and air pollution from the mills has been dramatically reduced since the 1970s. That environmental damage wasn't in the acquisition of the raw materials. The cheapest way to get the raw materials happens to be the most environmentally conscious way, too: grow them yourself close by and replace them. The companies also conveniently get more control over their product when they choose this way. It's a win-win. Paper manufacturers are LOVING the current "environmental" trend, because it's easy for them to put "recycled" on their products because they were that way to begin with!! (Post-consumer content recycling is another matter, since the raw materials have to be obtained from garbage, but pre-consumer recycling has always been a part of the paper industry to maximize the amount of product (and profits) from the raw materials.) It's like all those potato chips that claim "zero cholesterol" to appeal to anyone concerned about their health ... potato chips never had to be changed to get zero cholesterol unless they were fried in lard or tallow, and most weren't because other oils were much cheaper. Why NOT make an eco-claim if your product already is?

[hickarus]

what happens when that awkward college guy spills his beer all over it? Does it become trash? I semi-agree with JMikeB but I would rasp the fuzzies flat & then use thin (1/16") wood veneers to cover all the exposed cardboard edges and then apply a nice finish to it. I know it's an extra step, but it would help the longevity of the piece and make it look like as solid as it apparently is. Otherwise, it has a sort of "let's just chuck this when we graduate" look about it, because it doesn't look like it would survive much abuse. Nice design, though.

[snod83]

What you made is called a steel rule die. They are used for cutting all sorts of material and are VERY cheap to make. Good one

[JMikeB]

nice but why not cover the corrugated part with just one sheet of cardboard?