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I am just afraid one of these days spitting tacks I am going to try to get one from my mouth and accidentally break a tooth with the hammer :/

Dacron is pretty much mandatory at our shop as well. It has a nice way of puffing out to smooth any "terrain features" that may be in the foam. We have a lot of space, so we buy big rolls from here: http://www.albanyfoam.com/images/AFS_2014_catalog_Page_22_.pdf

Steve, thank you very much for the kind and thoughtful gesture!  I am looking forward to the arrival of your generous gift :-)

Thanks for the comments guys.

Sofadoc: The worker/owner thing is a bit fuzzy to me too on some levels; but the main idea is that the workers will, indeed, all be owners.  So as you can imagine, democratic processes will be required for decision-making.  Of course it is not always optimally efficient to be democratic about everything, so not every decision will be voted on!

It is certainly intended for Wellspring to become self-sufficient.  What further funding may lie in the future is an open question... certainly to me anyway.  So far it has been a challenge getting work in the door, so I have been spending some of my time cold-calling.  Fun!  Fortunately right now we have a job doing some booths for a restaurant, so busy at least for the moment.

The intention is for the Coop to grow at least to a dozen members.  Whether there is growth anticipated beyond that I don't know.  The specific plan is for the trainees to be part of Wellspring, but I think it is understood that if some people gain skills and then use them elsewhere in the area, that is a good thing as well.

Steve: Thank you for the kind words.  I am 39, so I don't know if I can consider myself young, or should just give it up and call myself old!  But I am certainly aware of the pollutants and toxins all around, from materials and clients!  I am pretty good at dealing with people, so I hope I can handle that.  I am not sure how long I will be strictly working in the shop, or if I will look to branch out in various ways in the future. But for now I am grateful for the opportunity I've been given, so I feel a responsibility to see it through as far as I feel my presence is a help to Wellspring.

To make a long story as reasonably-unlong as possible:

I started getting into the trade a while back on my own; I got some valuable advice on here about sewing machines (got a great old singer from Bob Kovar) and staples... was hoping to ease my way into doing it as a business, though I admit I found the prospect a bit daunting.  Had been muddling along with a day job in the meantime, but when that was suddenly gone, I was scrambling to figure things out.  Looked up "upholsterer" on a list of jobs from a career center, and lo and behold there was actually one listing!

Here is the deal: I am in the Springfield MA area, and Springfield is a city that has had its struggles.  Once a thriving industrial area, it has been fairly blighted for quite a while.  A plan was hatched by an economist/public policy guy at UMass Amherst to develop a new framework for economic development by creating cooperative, worker-owned businesses in the city.  He did research to try to figure what might be good options, and one was commercial upholstery.  The idea is to get some of the vast cashflow of local "anchor institutions" like universities and hospitals to stay in the city rather than flowing out of it.  Thus was the Wellspring Upholstery Cooperative born, the first of what is hoped to be a number of other cooperatives.

To start the Upholstery Coop, a partnership was formed with a local custom/high-end upholstery shop of high repute, Alliance Upholstery.  The owner of Alliance has been in business for over forty years and runs a three to four person shop.  He guides the workers that Wellspring brings in, and teaches all aspects of the trade while getting jobs out the door.

I came in in the unique position of actually being into upholstery, unlike the others for the most part.  So since October I have been toiling away, getting paid a modest but at least decent wage, and having the security of knowing that state funding is backing my employment and education in the trade for at least a year.  It seems I am incredibly lucky to have found this opportunity (inasmuch as I wanted to learn the trade).  My knowledge and capability has increased dramatically from being in a big successful shop, working and learning each day.

So I thought this all might be of interest to the folks here, especially having read the thread about taking on new learners to the trade, and in terms of the trade's future in general.  We had an official ribbon-cutting/press conference this week, and I had the extremely interesting experience of being accosted by a television camera crew and being interviewed for the evening news!

Thanks to any that got through this marathon post.  Should any of you incline to such things, I would be extremely grateful if you could "like" us on facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/WellspringUpholsteryCoop

or peruse the Wellspring website:

http://wellspring.coop/

And I would be interested to hear any comments you folks might have, and be glad to answer any questions.  Thanks!

I've got one of these:

http://www.amazon.com/Rolair-JC10-Compressor-Protection-Operation/dp/B0058NRVMO/ref=pd_sim_sbs_hi_1#productDetails

I bought it specifically because it was described as being quiet compared to others, and I wanted to use it in an apartment.  Works great, and is a great deal quieter than the craftsman that it replaced.

Thanks Chris.

Are those 20 gauge staples?

I am a bit different and some will tell you I am weird. Shoe fits I guess. :)

I use galv staples that are 3/8ths with a 1/2 crown on anything that is going to be indoors. I had pull through issues with the smaller crown staples ( 3/8ths ). Others have not had this problem but I like the extra bit of hold with the 1/2 ".

Anything that will be outdoors you should use stainless staples. In damp climates this is a must. In Florida it is imperative. I use 3/8ths with 1/2 crown SS staples. ( Good Gawd are those things expensive ). Most of your marine people will use the SS staples and consider them a neccessity.

I bought my el cheapo 1/2 " Harbor Freight stapler on sale for 19 bucks. Still going strong but not the best for furniture people who need long nosed staplers.

Chris

*hits the bottle*

Thanks for clearing up the mystery about the #7s and #8s sofadoc.


Another thing I was wondering about is staple finishes.  Galvanized, stainless steel, laquor...?  Which for which applications?

Sounds like I should buy a whole arsenal of staple guns  ;D

71 series. All of these are 3/8" crown 22 gauge. This is the most commonly used staple in the upholstery industry./quote]

The shop I'm in now uses the 71 series staples.I don't know how popular they are down there but my shop and the shop I was in first used the 1400 series staples.Very, very close to (but sadly not interchangeable with )the 71 series.The only appreciable difference I can see is that the 1400 series have a shorter staple available than the 71.Those little 1405's come in real handy on thin panels like the plates on the fronts of some arms and the odd quad seat where the plastic pan looks like it was cut out of a javex jug.

Thank you good doctor!

I think I might get a 22 gauge gun as well to be gentler to frames...  I have seen it suggested that 1/2" crown has the advantage of making fewer holes.  Is there a trade-off though?  Another thing that is unclear to me is what "#7" staples are?

What kinds of staples do people favor?  What gauges, crown sizes, and lengths, and for what applications?

I have a surebonder pneumatic staple gun which takes T50 staples (20 gauge, 3/8" crown).  Any opinions on these?  What do you folks have in your shops?

Thanks as always for any help  :)

http://www.upholster.com/upholstery-forum/index.php?topic=10991.0


I have the second book by Carol Thomerson. The emphasis is on 'traditional' upholstery.

gene

I take it you are referring to Covered in Style?  That appears to be out of print and quite hard to come by.  Would you recommend seeking it out?  Of course I have plenty of techniques to work on with the books I have now!

I am aware of the difference between the red-stripe jute, and the black-stripe jute, and have been using the former for seats (after an uniformed failure to do so on my first couple of projects  :-[).  And I have never discovered anything but red-stripe jute webbing on the pieces I have stripped.  But the authors in the aforementioned books explicitly state that the black and white webbing is preferable to (mandatory for even) the jute webbing for sprung seats.  I suspect that their insistence is more a matter of tradition than necessity though.

In a couple of the books I have been working with in learning upholstery,


http://www.amazon.com/New-Holland-Professional-Upholstery-Complete/dp/1847730574/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1353117385&sr=1-4&keywords=upholstery

and

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Upholsterer-Upholstering-Traditional-Furniture/dp/0711210926/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1353117431&sr=1-5&keywords=upholstery,


the authors indicate that only English black and white herringbone webbing should be used to support sprung seats.  Both these authors are Brits, as you might imagine, and I have noticed that this webbing seems extremely difficult to procure stateside.  What do you all say about this?  Is this just a bit of old world snobbery, or are we Yanks cutting corners underneath the springs?  And does anyone know I good way to get this webbing in the U.S.?