Replace Worn Arm Rests on a Secondhand Chair // Furniture Upcycle

This is a straight forward project provided you have access to a way to cut curved shapes in wood.

Here’s what you need:

• Wood
• Some stiff cardboard
• Someway to saw curved shapes in wood eg. bandsaw, jigsaw, coping saw etc
• Sand paper. Rough to fine grit (120gt, 240gt at least)
• Danish Oil

I traced a master template of the side profile onto cardboard, so that I could transfer it onto the wood.

The wood I had was too thin for the profile shape. I got around this by cutting strips from it and then turning them on their side to get more thickness.

I traced the profile onto each of the strips.

And cut them out on the bandsaw.

I then glued these back together so that I had a left and a right pair.

After the glue had dried I could smooth out the shape a bit more.

I used a hand plane going across the grain to get the shape roughly smooth. This may create a little bit of tearout at the edge of your pieces, so that’s why I did this step before cutting them to their final shape.

I then traced the outer shape onto the my pieces.

Using the bandsaw again to cut the shape.

I rounded the edges with the handplane.

Then sanded. a . lot. of. sanding. Moving up through the grits 120gt -> 240gt. I used mostly hand sanding because of the organic shape. With a power sander it’s very easy to accidentally put flat spots in your work, which will be noticeable at the end.

Finally I finished them with a couple of coats of Danish Oil. I like Danish oil because all you have to do is wipe it on, let it soak in a bit and then wipe off the excess – much less likely to get runs on a curved surface. The downside is it takes 4-8 hours to dry between coats :/

I’m happy with how they came out.

But mostly just glad they’re not dropping gross bits of foam and plastic all over my floor.