Hacking the Ikea 'Markus' Chair for armless use

A cost-effective and aesthetic solution to the ugly holes and metal bolt ends left exposed if you assemble the Ikea ‘Markus’ chair without arms but don’t have a 3-D Printer or are prepared to pay half the cost of the chair again for after market parts.

Background

I recently needed to replace my (home) office chair. The previous one was from a company whose name sounds like ‘Playfair’ and I didn’t want to buy from them again. The company was fine but the chair had failed after 10 months (gas piston), been replaced under warranty/goodwill but then one of the bolts had sheared after another 10 months and I’ve found from other purchases also that their stuff generally doesn’t last. I decided on the Ikea Markus chair as it has good reviews on the Interwebs, a ten year warranty, and isn’t ridiculously expensive. I did consider the more expensive JÄRVFJÄLLET but I didn’t think that any of the additional features would be useful/desirable for me, e.g. seat depth is adjustable but max was no greater than the Markus, and it didn’t seem like it could be assembled without the arms. I didn’t want arms because:

• I sometimes sit cross legged
• I sometimes play guitar

The Problem

The ‘Markus’ chair itself is great but if you don’t attach the arms you then you have a couple of ugly holes in the seat fabric each side with metal ferrules sticking out. I’d realised this ahead of time and I’d noted that a number of people have 3-D printed end caps to fix this. I thought I could just buy some after market and be sorted (I don’t own a 3-D printer at the time of writing).

Unfortunately when I went to actually buy them, it didn’t seem possible to get 3-D printed parts at a sensible price. The pricing seemed frankly deceptive, whether buying as a finished part or as a custom order from an online 3-D print shop sourced separately and using a freely shared computer file- Option one and option two. I appreciate that people need to cover their costs, make a profit, yadda, yadda. I don’t appreciate having to register for an account first then going through the entire order process to see the base cost going up by 30%, then plus 2 x different ‘fees’, plus delivery, plus tax. In any event 4 such covers would have come to approximately half the cost of the chair itself including tax. Not interested. After some conversation and thought I happened on a solution that seems to have worked surprisingly well:

Solution

The ferrules are threaded to accept Ikea Part # 115994 - ‘Bolt M8 With Flange 20mm Black’. Some of that length is expected to accommodate the thickness of the mounting tubes in the arms but you can screw the original bolts all the way in without the arms if you wish. M8 is a standard bolt and thread size/spec. I measured the outer diameter of the ferrules as approximately 14mm and wound up purchasing

• 24 of 14mm x 20mm x 1mm Flat Washers - Polyamide
• 4 of M8 x 10mm Cross-Slotted Mushroom Head Screws - Black Nylon

The flat washers fit over the ferrules perfectly without play and the outer diameter matches the mushroom screw head. This means that both the hole in the fabric and the ferrule are completely covered. I simply choose how many washers I want to use for each ferrule (each is 1mm thick) and the screws are then screwed in all the way to the head. Because all of the parts are plastic, it’s as ‘soft’ as it reasonably can be to protect guitars and ankles. I wasn’t sure quite how many washers I’d need ahead of time but I didn’t use all of them, only 19 in the end. In my case these parts cost me 1/10 of the price of the chair including next day delivery. I had thought I would need to paint the washers or something as they were only available in a light colour but it turns out that they match the castors perfectly. I chose black mushroom head screws for my dark grey chair but I imagine white would work well for the light grey version. Check the pictures below:

I feel that this solution is on a par with the 3-D printed options I have seen. I’d recommend it to anyone looking for a cost-effective solution to covering the Ikea Markus chair arm holes when assembling without arms.