A lot of desk chairs and kitchen chairs have a center strut, that compresses when one sits down.
What is the point of it?
Is it supposed to spring back, so everyone sits at the same height wrt his arms and the desk or table?
Does it mean a height adjustment is no longer necessary on the chair?
Is it just supposed to accept the jolt when one sits down, so it's comfy to sit down? And does that mean a height adjustment is still needed?
I need as many as 3 new desk chairs, for the work bench, the office, and the kitchen. I've only shopped a little.
One webpage says there should be adjustable lumbar support. I've had some nice comfortable chairs but I never remember having that**. Not really important right? **The best chairs wore out over 8 months ago, so they're not here ot remind me.
Seems to me I need a height adjustment, a reclining resistance adjustment, so it will recline but not before I'm ready, and I know there is a third but I can't remember what it was.
There is a story that Abraham Lincoln had the front legs of his office guest chairs shortened slightly so that the "guests" would be sublimily urged on their way. No idea if it is true or not.
I think I may have heard that...who knows if that's true?
I do recall though, back in those days, Lincoln would actually spend some time talking to people who just walked up the the White House and ask to see him.
So if it is obvious, you should be able to explain it.
It's not obvious to me or I wouldn't have asked, right? I don't seen any need for a strut. One of my best chairs just had a center post. the seat height was adjustible on the post. and the seat swiveled on the post, amd that was all that was needed.
I wrote what follows before I thought to google the particular part, and way before I found out you could buy a universal replacment.
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The explanation is good but doesn't actually answr any of my qustions!
My strut was broken but other things, upholstery parts, were broken too. Too hard to repair.
I disassembled the chair and threw it away, but it's not too hard to describe. By strut, I mean the definition used in a car that has struts, not a fixed length support but like a shock absorber that spends most of its time almost fully extended,, with a shiny metal shaft that goes into a hydraulic cylinder. Probably not as big as the strut that holds up the car, but bigger than one of those hydraulic struts that hold up a trunk lid or hood.
You can tell the chair has one when you sit down, if you're heavy enough at least. The chair seat goes down after it's sat on. (Maybe comes part way up, esp. if you stand up a little. Definitely comes up the rest of the way when you get off the chair.)
If you weigh 150 or less, I'm not sure how you would notice except by looking. and then there is a cover in the way. This chair had 3 black plastic tubes, about 5 inches each, one inside the other. They telescoped in and out, were attached so whatever the height of the seat, they surrounded the strut.
One time I sat on the chair and the seat exhaled some gas, psss, went way down,and didnt' try to go back up. I'm not complaining, just describing. It was old enough to have given good service for quite a few years.
The chair without the strut was an older heavier chair in general and it had a heavy post holding the seat up. I'm sure there is more than one way this style could work, but my very fancy desk chair, that had a little damage and I got out of the trash on Wall St. NYC, and which lasted for 20 more years, had "threads" but only on 45 degrees of its circumerence, for raising and lowering the seat, using some big bolt iirc that screwed up and down the seat post.
It says " Universal Gas Cylinder and Mechanism Combination
If your chair underside looks like the image above and you purchased your chair from an office supply superstore, then our Universal Gas Cylinder and Seat Mechanism Combo will very likely match up. "
It sounds like if you bought your chair at a better office supply store, it wouldn't be made this way.
If "better" isn't the alternatitve to "superstore", what is?
Ok . The chair I am sitting on now has a center strut. As far as I can tell, it's like a car's shock absorber. This chair is pretty comfortable and the cat sleeps on the other such chair at night.
Since most of the people I've seen have built-in shock absorbers ...I imagine they put those struts in the chairs mostly for cat comfort.
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