While performing reupholstery on formal living room chairs recently, these simple
things were noted in redoing the furniture made during early 60's.
1. The chairs were fully skirted with stiffner - very thin
stiffner and lining essentially like paper
2. Bottom cushion decking was build with T- cushion style -
the roll edge 3 - sides was of foam nature, hard poly nature installed with 2"
U shape large staples) just bare semi hard foam. No burlap sewed over compressed
natural fillers to form the roll
3. Legs and installation of same -
front legs were conical screwed into t-nuts ( not as unusual as rear) while
rear were curved cut but installation was with a hex nut screwed to a threaded in
leg. One obvious situation about these two legs installed this was it required dust
cover to be partially installed (like 1/3 starting from rear) before rear legs (they are on
top of dust cover) because can't get the hex nut on without access to the leg stud.
Then with dust cover partially installed, the rest of dust cover is stapled on, followed
by screwing front legs into the T-Nuts.
Could go on & on regarding the frame as to how it compared to before and after
technology/materials.
Bottom line - at today's point, we have come a long way!
Doyle
These are some changes that were new from chairs before that period, plus compared to
the more recent production one also observes changes since.
We just did 40 chairs for an Assisted Living facility that are used in the dinning room. Seats with oval backs. The backs were glues in. Very strange. The OB was a thin plywood panel covered in vinyl stapled to the plywood panel. the IB was done the same way and this unit was glued to the frame and each other making a finished product. We had to literally break out the back to strip them down by first cutting the glue joints with a ground putty knife and hammer, then hammering the panels out.. This glue would hold a train together, no exaggeration, . I looked it up and it was way to expensive for the glue and the gun to use it. I called the factory that makes these chairs and talked to a tech that said they were not made to reupholster and when he had to redo one he also had to break the out. These had nice maple frames and look exactly like any other. The project came out very nice finished with DW. The seats were made normally. High tech way of doing a back.
I am not a furniture guy Paul but am curious, how did you re attach the backs ?
Chris
We just stapled them on like usual and finished it off with double welt. They came out nice.