Are you a gamer and a customization freak and lover? Then I bet you have considered getting a customized gaming chair for yourself, designed just as you like, to reflect a part of your personality. The most definite option you may pay heed to is buying a chair you have ordered to be customized. That can be pretty expensive and might not even satisfy your preferred level of personalization.
If you considered building and customizing a gaming chair yourself, you might not have liked the sound of it. What if it’s not that tedious and difficult as you have imagined? Now that’s the personalization you will love and enjoy. Surprisingly, building a customized gaming chair is not that difficult.
Especially if you love to make DIY projects and the sense of accomplishment they bring, you will love the task. So if you are up for a fun and challenging DIY project, check out the steps below about how to build and customize a gaming chair. Also described are the advantages and disadvantages you need to know before gearing up for the task.
How to Build and Customize a Gaming Chair
1. Find the Seat
Fortunately, you don’t necessarily need to build a seat for your gaming chair; you can just look around and find the right one. While there is the option to put together a seat from scratch, a much better one that is also cheaper, convenient, and saves lots of labour is to find a car seat for your DIY custom gaming chair.
Car seats are designed to be comfortable because they have to provide support while hours of driving and sitting straight and ease from the pressure and strain. For gaming, which can also be for long hours, you need a similar level of comfort and support. Hence, if the demands are the same, it’s wiser to opt for the same thing.
A car seat shouldn’t be difficult to find in a world swarming with cars. Not suggesting that you should ravage the streets and the cars for a seat you like! Visit a junkyard for that; there you can even find leather seats of premium car models, that too at a meagre price, like Porsche and Ferrari, along with other models as well, lots of them.
Choose a car seat that you find most comfortable; find that by sitting on each one of them. Make sure that the seat is not much worn out and has tears or cuts, that it is in a good, usable condition. Once you have made the selection, negotiate with the junkyard owner for the best price, try to save as much money as you possibly can. Have the seat removed from the car and get set to begin putting together your gaming chair.
2. Time for the Five-Star Base
Next up, you have to attach a five-star base to the car seat, and yes, you thought it right, some drilling and stuff ahead! You can use the five-star base of any old and unused chair. Unscrew it from the chair and attach it to the new seat. But first, make sure that the base is strong enough to bear the load of the car seat since these are pretty heavy and demand a tough supporting base.
Now, of course, the base will not be an ideal fit for the car seat since it is not built for it. Yeah, it’s you who need to make the alterations and adjustments to make it fit. Most car seats have a heavy metal base, so you might need to cut it to make the seat lightweight and for the five-star base to fit. Then to firmly secure the five-star base, you need to drill a few holes in the car seat. The deed can be difficult for some, so you can also have it done by a professional who has the expertise or from an auto repair shop, though it can cost you a bit.
3. Design and Customize
This is the most fun step of building a customized gaming chair. You get to design and customize your gaming chair and make it belong to you by every means. Also, the seat of your gaming chair could definitely be in need of some touching up. The old and used car seat could be faded and dull; the five-star base and the seat might not be matching in terms of colour.
Colour and design the seat any way you want. You can go for darker colours for a sleek classic design or for bright popping colours; make it monotone or colour the sides differently. Design and make the chair do the talking for you. The paint you should choose depends on the material of the seat. If the seat is made of fabric, go for fabric spray paint or fabric acrylic paint; if it’s of leather, opt for vinyl paints. You can purchase paint from auto supply stores. Design your chair any way you like and make it look like a brand new one.
Buying Vs. Building a Custom Gaming Chair
This question must have crossed your mind throughout all this. Whether it’s really worth embracing the challenge, building a custom gaming chair yourself, or should you rather go for a store-bought one? In terms of the price, quality, and labour. Well, you should, and you need to have all this knowledge beforehand, decide later.
Below are the advantages and disadvantages of building and customizing a gaming chair, weighed and assessed for your convenience while making the decision. Go ahead and have a look.
Advantages
- A customized gaming chair will be designed and modified exactly as per your personal likings. You don’t have to settle for any detail that you don’t personally like.
- Your custom-built gaming chair will be much more comfortable than a purchased one since car seats are more comfortable than gaming chairs. You can also get a premium quality car seat.
- You can build a customized gaming chair for a much lower price, considering you can find all the parts. If you can find the right seat, base, and can do the drilling and fixing task yourself, then it’s going to cost much cheaper than buying one, less than $100.
- You won’t find the project much difficult if you are a DIY lover and expert; you will love the challenge and enjoy the task.
- Once you are done, you will love this sense of accomplishment that DIY projects bestow. If the product turns out good, you will find it worth your time and effort.
Disadvantages
- Since car seats are comfortable but heavy, your customized gaming chair will be comfortable but heavier than a regular gaming chair. This can be an inconvenience if you need to move it around a lot.
- You might need to modify the parts, which will cost you a considerable amount of money, and if you ask a professional to do the fixing, it will cost you furthermore.
- The project is time-consuming; you won’t like this if you don’t have a lot of time to invest.
- It’s highly likely that the quality of your end product will not be as good as a store-bought one; it’s futile to expect that.
Conclusion
Revealing the final verdict, this DIY project to build and customize a gaming chair can be really fun and a worthy experience, and you will get yourself a nice, cool gaming chair, personalized purely according to you. However, as we weighed the pros and cons, you shouldn’t expect it to be close to a high-quality gaming chair available in the market.
Obviously, it will lack a good number of features that regular gaming chairs come up with. It will be comfy having a strong base, but it won’t recline, or have neck support or lumbar support, or be lightweight. So, you need to be practical and understand that it is a fun and informative DIY project; you will learn a lot about the build of a gaming chair. But if you want a perfect gaming chair, in the long run, you should rather go visit the market.
You can also read about the difference between a gaming chair vs recliner here!
