I once got a GREAT deal on a tablesaw because, "It just won't cut right. Maybe you can figure it out." I did figure it out. The blade was in backwards.

Imagine watching this and realizing that it was your chair!! Almost 15 years later and 2 million subscribers and still dumpster diving, love it! Thanks for the knowledge and entertainment

The Ikea design people thought how to avoid misassembly in a lot of parts, but a knucklehead was able to prove they did not considered the obvious.

Loved the engineer, arts, and athletic joke!

I worked for a furniture company for a few years. After assembling wooden stools we would sort of drop them on the floor carefully and that would align all four legs, then we would do the final tightening of all screws/bolts. That little trick would work like a charm. We ended up doing it on nearly everything that was a chair like item.

As much as I love your scientific and engineering content, my favorite thing is to just watch you fix garbage furniture And I would have never thought to use splines that way

Lol as an engineer I can say I've met hundred of engineers who would build the chair with its legs on upside down and no seat. Matthias just is a good one lol

There I was waiting for the jump test 😂

Good illustration of why poka yoke is important, especially if the consumer is the one doing final assembly!

That crack when you sat down reminds me of when my brother came to visit. When he sat in the chair I made from your dad's design, it made a loud crack. He leaped up. After inspecting it, I figured out that the seat top has expanded or contracted, needed to shift, and was able to do so because of the clipped-in design. All of the mortises and tenons were fine. No matter how much I explained that to John, he wouldn't trust the chair and refused to sit in it again!

“Knucklehead” is a very kindhearted description. IKEA engineers their knock-down furniture to be [almost] idiot-proof to assemble, but it does require following their instructions.

Classic Matthias, rescuing furniture from the trash. Love it

"I don't need the instructions, Karen" lol Ikea even bothered to mold pins into the chair and make fitting holes into the wooden frame.

I once got a free roller lawnmower because it will not cut properly. Took it home, its blades were thickened with grass clippings stuck on it. Cleaned it and there we go. Was okay for my small garden

Even people who read the manual know how to assemble a chair. You don't need an engineer for that and in fact I watched an engineer not know how to operate a vacuum cleaner. In fact, the question, "Can an engineer replace a lightbulb?" can be answered with, "No because he/she/they get their technicians and technologists to do it for them" comes to mind. That being said, I know you are a hands-on engineer so you have that practical knowledge as well.

Finding replacement bolts from your own collection works, but IKEA also has a parts website where you can get free replacement parts shipped out. It takes some research to find the manual and original part numbers, but I've gotten free replacements for missing pieces on used furniture we've purchased.

I'm low key impressed with the chair. If the starting criteria is no permanent joints, that is about what you should expect. Assuming it is assembled correctly and the hardware tightened periodically, it should prove quite durable.

I love content like this. It's all good, of course, but fixing stuff is my favorite. This chair was more complicated than I remember most Ikea furniture being.

Fixing fast furniture with such care is beautiful.

You manage to make building Ikea furniture interesting. This is much higher praise than it may come off as.

I always love watching your repair videos!

About straightening those bolts. I have succesfully straightened 8mm round bar with a bend like that by using a strong vice, and I think the method transfers. In the case of those bolts there is of course the problem that you have to protect the thread. One way to protect the thread is to cut a nut in two half circle parts. Use three cut-in-half-a-circle nuts. Those halved nuts then serve a dual purpose: to protect the thread on the bolt from being squashed, and to make the vice jaw apply force precisly where it must be applied to undo the bend. (For a bend with a very small radius the outer pushers must be very close to the bend, close enough to avoid bending in the wrong place.) After each push: to know if the bend is undone: turn the bolt around, and feel where it binds. (You may have open up the jaws ever so slightly to feel all the way around.) Where it binds the most is where where there is still some (remaining) bend. Of course, if metric bolts are hard to get where you live then metric nuts will be hard to get too. Maybe use the mini-lathe to make some nuts out a very hard wood, or a soft metal.

I’m guessing the original owner was a ‘don’t need no instructions’ kinda guy. And as I have assembled many ikea items, I have been always pleased ar how well designed and manufactured they are, practically fall together on their own…just read and follow the instructions, paying attention to the details

I love your furniture repair videos!

Awesome. One man's trash is another man's treasure. I like to fix stuff from the garbage or reuse them for other projects 💪

I REALLY thought you were going to say "business students" hahaha

Nice job, another one saved from the trash! Interesting to see these fixes

Another great job in fixing a discarded item.

I suspect alcohol was involved with the original assembly. "This doesn't fit ... I'm just going to brute force it on anyway."

Gotta love it when you find the perfect bolt in your can of miscellaneous bolts

It definitely could have been engineering students.

Thank you sir for teaching me a new idea on how to place a threaded insert. I insert placement always misalign while using an Allen Key. But now u solved my problems.

If only we had videos of the people who assembled it the first time...

Good job as usual.

This just illustrates why I strongly prefer joinery that puts the stresses in straight lines and right angles. Yes, it can look kind of boring, but it's easier to understand how things might fail. And then build them so they don't. And don't get me wrong, I like Eames design and even Ikea (usually). But when I have to live with it, I intend to live with it for the rest of my life, and choose designs that will make it all the way to that end.

Those chairs always remind me of the original series Star Trek chairs.

Love that trick with the splines to fix the threaded insert

I'm impressed at how many bolts went into that seat alone.

Repairing stuff is just so satisfying

Matthias using Titebond III? My man's getting fancy....

I love the crack when you sat down LMAO

Forensic woodworking. I love it 😂 Great video Matthias 👍🇬🇧

it looks nice !

I'm dumbfounded by this video. The IKEA FANBYN chair instructions specifically call out the curve

@ 01:17 lol Yeah! 😂 Great Repair Matthias!!! 👍

Nice video 😊

Oh... wow... how does one even manage to do this kind of ... extraordinary feat of ... mental hand coordination. :)) For once, it's not the I-kia.

Every year they release an even better model of fool it seems!

I have met a few engineers who could have assembled it the way you found it.

I just love this kind of video 😂

Wouldn't havethought to use splines in that case, very nice

Impressive attempt to straighten bolts... too bad it wasn't that comfortable in the end. I like the tip about putting in those reinforcement splines

this is quintessential Matthias.

Oh, believe me, as an engineering student, I must say it is an underestimation of us to think that we could not have screwed this up so badly.

The salvation of this doomed thing makes me think of Leon the lobster

Once again Matthias fixes someone else's screw up! Well done! 👍👍

IKEA might use bad materials but their engineering is genuinely impressive

"Now I'm thinking athletics." 😂

I'v had a lot of success bending screws (and other bent hardware) with a vise: Put two small pieces of wood/metal on one side of the jaw, a single piece on the other side, and the screw in between, with the bend exactly resting on the single piece. The vise allows you to precisely control the bending and go very slowly. With the size and material of those spacer pieces you can adapt the setup to various situations.

Good find.

For future reference, there's a section on the ikea website about missing parts. There you can specify which parts you're missing, and they will send them to you, for free. It won't even take that long.

Felicitaciones, estas son los trabajos que me llenan de satisfacción, reparar y dar más vida a los cosas, mucha gente lo primero que hace es tiras a la basura, su canal es un ejemplo de reciclaje

Muito bom irmão. Obrigado pelo vídeo. Seus vídeos são muito bons. Parabéns.

Finally something that needs Metal on metal and not wood on metal 😀 Also if you turned the bolts on your metal lathe what interesting bolts you could have made ! 😀

"im thinking arts" hilarious :D

Matthias for the win!!!!

I would NOT assume 'put together wrong' and 'thus not an engineering student' follow each other logically. I've known a LOT of engineering students, and 'If I can make it fit, it's supposed to fit' is ALSO a design philosophy.

Meanwhile, an Ikea designer in Sweden wonders why he sleeps easier tonight.

"I was thinking 'arts.'" xD

So to be fair some people had minds that just do not operate in the realm of common sense. Some people live in the theoretical and the philosophical. Lets just make sure those types do not build our cars and bridges. Love this kind of content.

Never underestimate the ingenuity of fools when designing something that has to be foolproof.

Would this episode be classified as forensic woodworking? 😂

Athletes out here catching strays

Ikea is for rich kids lol. everything i had was Mainstays. i still have my Mainstays end table, which is essentially just paper pulp formed into the shape of an end table and painted to look like wood. its surprisingly sturdy

Love being able to fix something broken rather than tossing it in a landfill and buying new.

The car of the guy who assembled the chair can be seen at "Just Rolled in". ;)

Well, at least it was made with good wood, Matthias. Because most of them unfortunately are not. 😕 But really well done!!! 😃 Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊

LOL since Matthias moved to Freddy, the UNB students no longer have to burn their old furniture on Graham Ave anymore.

Original Murphy's Law, Edward Murphy built strain gauges for the early space program rocket sled in late 1940's. If you build a part that could be put on backwards/wrong, it will inevitably be installed wrong by a technician.

art and athletic students catch strays lol

Imagine watching this video, and finding out you put your chair together wrong and when it broke you threw it to the curb. Lol

Nice

How are your videos so good?

It's funny that the manufacturer took steps to idiot proof the assembly, but the precautions failed. So, never underestimate an idiot.

Some frat boys will watch this video in amazement.

I didn't know if you know this but IKEA will send you nuts and bolts for free to replace the broken ones

As a (former) engineer(ing student), do not underestimate engineering students ability to screw things up (upside down)

“ … clearly not Engineering students …”. Hysterical …..

😂 This was great! How they managed to assemble it wrong!? Looks like assembly manuals are for cats, but cats can't read.. 😂

Your competence easily balances out hundreds of “knucklehead” college students. Unfortunately, I fear that’s only a drop in the bucket 😂

👍great video

A wood elf healing the holy material.

0:59 “So I found this in a student neighborhood, and given how it was put together, it was clearly not *Engineering* students. I was thinking *Arts,* but looking at this bolts, now I’m thinking *Athletics.”*

The IQ of whoever put that together originally and thought "Yeah, I've nailed that. Perfect." ......

wow previous owner obliterated the swedes' intense poka yoke design

i cant recall ever seeing ikea furniture for sale any where here in any store here in ga. online sales only ???

Kursi bagus .❤

Had to be 'Jocks', Matthias, the art students would have assembled it so it didn't look like a chair anymore - just the 'Essence of what a Chair Is in the Mind of a Spidercrab'. If they were joint Art & Economics students they would have also seccured a large grant to build it with. . .

It must be wery amusing to work in the IKEAs customersservice to see all those wrong assemblies

"found this in a student neighbourhood" There should be an IKEA successful furniture assembly requirement for University acceptance.