Many have experienced a situation that consists of extreme discomfort due to a broken camping chair. Whether it is some torn fabric, broken legs, or loose joints, broken camping chairs can cause undesired stress to your trip.
However, if you don’t want to fork out the dough for a new chair, there are several ways to mend your broken chair to function the way it should.
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How to Fix a Broken Camping Chair
To fix a broken camping chair, owners can mend them with household tools and materials, but it depends on what part is broken.
You can fix torn fabric with some needle and thread and a patch of sturdy material. Tightening the leg joints and support bars also can fix stability issues. Or replacing a nut and screw can repair broken parts of the chair.
Chairs with Torn Fabric
One of the most common injuries that camp chairs sustain is getting their fabric torn. Most commonly, this happens around the armrests or within the seat.
Regardless of the location, dealing with a torn chair is beyond annoying. And, each torn section has the terrible potential of getting larger until the chair is unusable.
So, patching the area with a piece of thick fabric can lengthen the life of your chair. Patching your chair will require a few items to have at hand.
The material you will need is a patch that will cover the whole area of the ripped portion. The patch should be a thick, durable material; some have even used denim.
Also, you will need some durable thread and a needle strong enough to puncture the patch and the chair’s material.
Depending on the location of the rip, and the strength of your thread, you may need to use more than one line of stitching to ensure the patch will stay put and not come off.
Patching up your chair will not make it last forever. However, it will make it so that you can get your money’s worth out of each camp chair you buy.
Chairs with Broken Joints
Another familiar place where camping chairs break is at the joints where the support bars meet the seat of the chair or at the opposite end, where the support bars meet the platform that rests on the ground.
Often, these chairs look completely fine until somebody sits in them and suddenly finds that they only have support from three of the four legs.
And, generally, when a person sits in these chairs, the broken joint manifests with a support bar hanging askew, or one corner of the seat collapses part way.
These types of issues are usually caused by broken parts that are plastic. But fear not, this can be fixed as well without buying a new chair.
The materials needed for this repair are a screw of the same size used on the other parts of the chair and a nut of the same size as the screw. Also, you will need a screwdriver or wrench that matches the size and type of the screw and nut.
The trick of this repair lies in reconnecting the support bar to the chair by re-attaching it to the other support bars so that it will not collapse again.
First, you must thread the screw through the loose support bar also thread the screw through the leg platforms or corner housings at the seat. The holes should still be there for your screw to thread into.
After you have threaded the screw through the support bars and housing, attach the nut on the backside of the screw to lock it into place. Ensure that it is sufficiently tight.
You should now be able to sit down in your repaired chair.
Repairing a Wobbly Chair
As your camp chair ages, sometimes the chair starts to lose some of its support. Sometimes, chairs will lean to the left or right, and the person sitting in them feels on the verge of tipping over.
If your chair is wobbly, it is extremely simple to tighten up the support bars so that the chair stands straight and firm again. Also, it is a good idea to do this, because if your camp chair is leaning, it will soon bend too far and break.
You will need a wrench and/or screwdriver to tighten up the legs on your wobbly chair. You should first find out what type and size of tools are required to tighten the chair’s joints.
Flipping the chair upside down is the easiest way to access most of the areas you need to tighten.
Thoroughly go over all the areas that have screws and check the tightness of each. The most common areas that get stressed and loosened in camp chairs are at the bottom leg platforms and the four corners of the seat.
Tightening up these areas around the support bars will cure your chair of the wobbles and help mitigate the chance of the chair breaking at the stress points.
Frequently askes questions about fixing a broken camping chair
How big of a rip can be fixed with a patch on the chair canvas?
Generally, if the torn section is six inches or less, you should be able to patch it and enjoy the use of your chair. However, if multiple rips or a giant tare runs the length of the back or seat, it may be difficult to patch too large of an area effectively.
How can I make sure that the nut and screw I use to repair the chair do not keep loosening as the chair is used?
One option is to use thread glue or hypoxia when threading the screw through the support bars and nut. This will tighten up everything the threads touch and prevent the nut and screw from coming loose.
Conclusion
In the end, no camping chair will last forever. At times, it is just time to move on from a chair and get a new one. But, these easy tips and tricks can greatly lengthen the life of your camp chairs, and hopefully, they can save you some money.
