Step-by-step DIY Target Stand
I started with a normal camp chair with arms, but it would be easier if it were the armless style. I drilled out the rivets that held the back and arms in place. After slipping the back off, I cut it away from the seat,and the arms slid up and off. I then cut off the section of tubing where the arms attached to the front of the chair.
I reused the plastic caps to cover my fresh cuts and to keep the seat attached. At this point, I could have drilled holes in the plastic caps on the back tubing, inserted the fiberglass rods and called it a day, but that would have been too easy and one of the caps was busted. I decided that rubber leg tips with a hole drilled slightly smaller than the fiberglass rods would hold the best.
I had already decided to use binder clips and magnets to secure the cardboard to the uprights. At this point I made a Home Depot run. The tubing of the chair was 3/4” OD, but I wanted a tight fit so I got 5/8” leg tips.
I wanted the top of the uprights to be 60” from the ground, so I inserted self-tapping screws 12” up in the back legs.
I didn't want the tubing coming up any higher than it had to, so I measured up 2”from where the seat stopped when it was folded up and cut them off there. (I almost messed it up by cutting them off 2” above the seat when it was open. This would have left the tubing 4” short when folded up.)
As I was doing all this, I began to think about how the fiberglass rod would contact the screw I had set in the legs and that it might shunt off to the side or slide past it entirely. I ended up lining the tubing with a section of 1/2” ID Plex tubing. The OD of the Plex was just shy of 5/8”, which was the ID of the metal tubing of the chair.
To keep the fiberglass rod centered, I cut the wings off some red wire nuts and trimmed them down so they just fit inside the Plex.
Finally, it was time to work on the fiberglass rods. To glue the magnets to the rods, I filed channels in the rods for the magnets to sit in. I probably could have used a fast setting epoxy and glued them to the curve of the rod, but all my epoxy has gone bad, so I worked with what I had,contact cement and it needs a flat surface.
For each binder clip, I used two magnets spaced far enough apart that they can still make full contact. I then spaced those groups about 28” from the bottom of the bottom magnet to the top of the top magnet. This holds the cardboard in place rather well, but may not be enough in a real world situation. I may need to add another set of magnets in the middle of the rods, or figure out some way to make the binder clips less slick,perhaps some contact cement on the binder clips to add a rubber like coating.
The front feet of the chair already had holes in them, but I had to drill holes in the back feet. I've been making my own stakes for years. These are the little ones. Just a big nail and a fender washer duct tape dtogether. (For our big tent, I use 14” landscape timber nails)
I've gotta get some sand and make some sandbags. If the ground is too hard to stake, the sandbags in the seat should hold it in place.
Materials List:
Stuff I had on had on hand:
1 Old Camp Chair(seen better days)
32” 1/2” ID Plex Tubing (replaced when I installed new dishwasher)
2 1” Self-Tapping Screws
2 Large Red Wire Nuts
4 Big-Ass Nails (6”)(the ring-shank ones work really great)
4 1 1/4” Fender Washers with 1/4” hole
Items bought for project:
2 48” Reflective Rod Orange ($1.99ea)
1 4pk 5/8” Rubber Leg Tips ($1.85)
1 10pk 0.3” x 0.11” Neodymium Rare-Earth Magnet Discs ($3.98)
I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial. I think I have an armless camp chair in storage that is about at the end of it's usable life, once this one has proven itself at the range, I'll go to work on it.
If I have any problems with this when I go to the range, I promise I'll update.
