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Messages - mike802

31
The "GREEN" Room! / Re: Chaise De Sygne Part 7
February 27, 2015, 09:26:59 am
The showroom at the end of the video was my booth at a local trade show.   I did not have time to take any good pictures of the chair before the show, so I decided to take some at the show.
32
The "GREEN" Room! / Re: Chaise De Sygne Part 7
February 25, 2015, 08:33:58 am
Thanks guys.
33
General Discussion / Re: MIL
February 25, 2015, 08:32:31 am
Sorry to hear about your MIL Virginia, our prayers are with you.
34
General Discussion / Re: Paid holidays for employees
February 12, 2015, 09:10:53 am
I have always believed that if you want good employees you have to be a good employer.  If your people do not feel appreciated they will not do good work.  At this point in time it is just me with family help as needed, but I have had up to 4 employees at times.   If I had to hire today, I think I would offer different plans where the employee could choose the plan that best fits his, or her needs.  They could choose between added pay pr hour vs paid time off.  The last employee I had I started at 10.00 pr. hour, over minimum at the time.  He was reliable and showed interest and talent, but decided to leave because he wanted insurance.  I found him a plan, but he would have had to pay for it, so I offered him a raise to off set the cost, I lost him anyway.
35
All kidding aside I have to admit it is easy to use to many staples, but with the obesity epidemic we have today you can never be to careful.  I tend to use more staples than is necessary to just hold the fabric onto the frame, because more are usually needed to hold the fabric on smoothly.  The extra staples are used to hold in puckers, dimples and such.  Not really related to webbing though.
36
In my experience working with decorators usually ended up with me building the business and reputation of the decorator while I just got a pay check.  I told my last decorator to come and get all their furniture and hit the road.  It was really hard to do but I got tired of not getting all the information needed to give an estimate, or do the job properly and then getting blamed if something went wrong.  The straw that broke the camels back was when they wanted me to eat the cost of a cushion that they messed up the dimensions on, plus eat the cost of an upgrade.  Luckily I did not need their business to survive and life has been so much better without them.  I am considering starting a marketing campaign in their area just to rub it in.
37
Although plywood can be used successfully in furniture if used correctly, it would be much easier to build your piece from solid hardwood.  I would suggest 5/4 soft maple for unexposed frame members, if you do not have the equipment to dress rough lumber, I am sure a local woodworker would be able to do this for you rather inexpensively.  Springs put an enormous amount of stress on a frame, an 8 way hand tied coil spring system will normally put a bow in 4/4 hardwood frame on a club, or wing chair and Zig Zag springs should be installed using a special tool to help the upholster use some leverage, otherwise installing them can be dangerous, if not imposable.  Plywood flexes easily in the exact direction that you need it to be stiff to resist the tension from the springs, not to mention several hundred pounds of people flopping around on it. I have repaired many plywood sofas because of issues listed above, but also because today's plywood has a tendency to delaminate.  You are copying methods used in production furniture, these methods are not for increasing quality, but for making a cheaper product that will last out its warranty period. With all the time and effort you will have invested in this project, I think it is in your best interest to build it from materials that will last several generations.
38
General Discussion / Re: Plastic spring clips
January 29, 2015, 09:28:58 am
Is it to be funny, or just for the money? I cant find the essence in obsolescence!!
39
General Discussion / Re: Re-assessing time, effort...
January 28, 2015, 05:51:21 pm
It's all in the clientele.  You have to have access to the right people, if you don't have that access you will have to build your clientele and that could take years. One possibility that I have used in the past is to upholster something up in muslin and let the customer choose the final fabric.  In my area antiques and used furniture usually get upholstered out of an emotional attachment, someone without this attachment will rarely spend the extra money and just buy new, occasionally someone will come along looking for quality, but they are not common, at least not the locals in my area.  I would think your biggest hurdle would be getting people to not compare your pieces with new ones, you need to get them comparing apples to apples so to speak.  The next hurdle is your reupholstered antiques will probably end up selling you more reupholstering work.  If you don't want more of the same business you might want to set up a separate business that only sells "reconditioned" or "restored" antiques.  and not let it get out that you also reupholster and stick to your guns when asked if you could also reupholster grandmothers sofa.  For me that would be difficult, because after 31 years in the business turning down a paying job is very hard, especially after being  "Scared, broke and hungry".  in those first years.  Even if you don't necessarily need the money today, yesterdays conditioning is hard to break.

41
It could be Walmart is trying desperately to win some good PR for itself.  I get these type of scams a lot and you can usually tell right off with poor English, spelling and grammar.
42
I dont text.  I dont have a real cell phone either.  I watched a video on youtube where three cell phones surrounded some popcorn, all the phones were called at the same time and they all rang together, the popcorn started popping.  I do not want that many microwaves entering my brain.  We have a flip open cell that we buy minutes for and only use it in emergency's.
43
General Discussion / Re: Seasons Greetings
December 23, 2014, 08:24:31 am
Happy Holidays everyone :-)
44
General Discussion / Re: Bad Renters
December 16, 2014, 07:39:46 am
I used to be a landlord, but the laws are so stacked against landlords that I sold my property's.  I did have a few good tenets, but the majority were just awful.  It takes at least 9 months to get tenets out of your building, but then they can catch up some of the back rent and gain more time.  All said you could spend one and a half years getting someone out.  I have taken people to court for back rent, won a judgment, but never saw a dime and I'm not talking small change here, more like three and five grand.

The house I live in now was a three unit when we bought it.  We moved in on the first floor apartment and had apartments on the second and third floors.  The second floor tenet was good, but she had men coming and going all hours of the night.  The third floor tenet was such a busy body that the second floor tenet moved out.  Over the years we had tenets come and go, each time someone moved out we had to go through the apartment and paint, clean and repair damage and remove trash.  Some times tenets would steel appliances and expect me to store their stuff for free. 

I had people making drug deals in my driveway, tenets would get mad at me and back into my car.  My wife took a trip to our capital and talked to the legislators about how the laws put the landlords at a disadvantage and rental property's would soon become in short supply if they did'nt change the laws, all to death ears.

We turned our house back into a single family home.  The house next door to us is a rental and tenets there regularly steel eggs from our chickens and wood from our firewood supply.  The last tenets that lived next door stool all the copper in the house when they moved out, so it has sat vacant for the last two years, best neighbors I ever had! LOL 
45
The "GREEN" Room! / Re: Chaise De Sygne Part 6
December 12, 2014, 04:07:29 pm
I finished with three coats of Danish Oil.  Center points are great when cutting many circles the same size, but I can cut out one almost as fast, faster if you take into consideration the set up time involved.