Replace broken rubber arm rests with wood

Around fifteen yrs ago I bought a nice big and tall computer chair that tilted back some and had a headrest. Well over time the one arm rest got trashed and then I got another computer chair when they closed our office down back in 2020. So this old chair went to the garage...and as many of you have likely noticed, my garage is over full of tools, let alone stuff, for the size it is and so I need to get rid of the chair. However since it was still in decent shape other than the arm rest, I did not want to just throw it out. And if I tried to donate it with the broken arm rests, they would either not want it, or just throw it out. So since I needed a wood project anyway, I decided to try and make a set of arm rests out of wood. Keeping in mind that I wanted to minimize my costs since the end result is getting donated to Goodwill or Salvation army anyway.
The wood I had available was some 2x6's that were of a really heavy and hard pine of some type that probably came off a delivery truck to home depot (or a customer) as they were abandoned years ago in the parking lot as 'trash'...well for me...that was free project wood, so I grabbed it. However since it was rough sawn and somewhat twisted (maybe why they threw it out), the wood was not useful for any previous project...however these planks were the perfect size (4.25"x11.25") to make the arm rests.
This project also gave me a reason to use the jointer that I had just finished refurbishing, and that worked great! 3 or 4 passes went from rough sawn to minimal sanding on the flat surfaces to be ready for finish.
I then was able to re-use some wood threaded inserts and bolts that I had taken out of some furniture at some point, so that was free.
Overall the only cost was the electric, the minor wear and tear for the machines (and me), the 4 pieces of 80 grit Diablo 5" sander sanding net, and the two coats of triple thick polyurethane...so that is the perfect 'minimal cost' that makes it an easy donation to do.
Hopefully someone will get a few years out of the chair once it is donated. And even better, I get some garage floor space back to make the tool/stuff Tetris a bit simpler when I do other projects.

[@michaelhancock5606]

Nicely done 😊

[@josephkrug8579]

I made it 'too' nice...Tracey tried it and she likes it better than the other chair she used for garage/yard sitting...so I get to keep this one and get rid of others instead. Oh well, it did 'go' to where it will be appreciated at least. :) And when I get rid of the others, I will still get some floor space back.

[@eleanorkrug8694]

Looks good.

[@josephkrug8579]

Thanks, it will hopefully be enough to save the still usable chair from the trash and allow someone to get a bit more use out of it, and was an excuse to use all the fun garage toys. :)

[@Oh_Foe_Sho]

I have replaceable arm rest covers similar. Might actually you this as inspiration to add detachable mounts for some joysticks.

[@josephkrug8579]

Nice, the one thing I ran into during the build but do not think I covered, was the threaded insert holes...make sure you have test inserts (ie more than you need to test with) and do a hole at the largest diameter of the insert near its top so they fit without putting too much stress on it...as for mine I broke two inserts testing to figure out how big the holes for them should be...then again they were from another piece of furniture that I took apart vs new, but still. It is something to watch out for, the allen wrench broke out the side on the two test units that were tried to be put in a too small hole in my test wood piece Luckily I had others in my extra bolts/etc box. :)