September 25, 2022
Description
Sam's Club calls it "Garden Scooter Seat," but most sellers call this little green thing "Rolling Garden Seat with Tool Tray, 300lb. capacity." It's really handy. Unfortunately, the attachment of the seat to the base depends on a simple weld holding a heavy internal-thread fitting to the cross brace, and that weld wasn't up to the challenge. The weld failed within the first month or so, which didn't make the unit unusable, but did make the seat wobbly.
I suppose I could have tried to re-weld it, or just use JB Weld, but those wouldn't increase the surface area by which it's held (and I didn't have the stuff to do either of those repairs). So, here's a simple 3D-printed part that fits over the failed weld and provides lots of glue area as well as wings to lock against the mounting plate to prevent rotation of the fitting (the seat still rotates as intended -- to adjust height). The part has an internal pattern that greatly increases the glue surface area, and I used Gorilla glue, which expands as it sets and thus will put significant clamping pressure on the piece. I don't know how well the repair will hold up because I just did it, but I'll post an update here later....
UPDATE: My first repair (printed in blue) didn't hold well enough to prevent all wobble. Gorilla glue isn't sufficient, so gardenseat20200709 (printed in silver) is a design clamping the repair in place with two printed pieces, four 1/4-20 bolts, and Liquid Nails glue.
Printer Brand:
Anycubic
Printer:
Kossel
Rafts:
No
Supports:
No
Resolution:
0.3mm
Infill:
25% or more
Filament: any PLA any
Notes:
For the original version, printed in blue: It's a really simple single part that prints upside down (which is the orientation of it in the STL file). Remove the seat by removing the locking pin and then screwing it up and out of the threaded fitting. Print the part, dry test fit, then slather some Gorilla glue on the failed weld and all contacting surfaces. Just before mounting it on the unit, get it slightly damp to activate the Gorilla glue. Clamp it in place as the glue expands and sets. Clean-up any glue that squeezes out (if you care). Screw the seat back in to the desired height and replace the retaining pin. Easy.
**For the improved gardenseat20200709**, printed in silver. Print the two pieces and install much like before, but this time the top piece gets bolted into the bottom piece and I used Liquid Nails instead of Gorilla glue.License:
Creative Commons — Attribution
ProfHankD
