While working on windows in the 308 on Saturday, I noticed that the covering on one of the seat cushions was coming apart. So it's time for another quick replacement job, which is a good thing to do at home. Stop me if you've seen this before....
This particular cushion had two layers, which is unusual. And actually, getting all the old tacks out of the frame is the most time-consuming part of the job, so it took a while to get both layers disconnected.
But after that's done, it looks like this:
Carefully lift the frame and all of the padding up, and set it back down on the new material, making sure it's evenly spaced. Nowadays I use a staple gun, which goes much faster than carpet tacks.
The material is stretched by pressing down on the frame as you work, and pulling on the loose edge. The center of all four sides is tacked, stretching as much as possible, and then checked for any wrinkles. It looks OK, so we keep stapling.
The corners are the only tricky part. The first one looks like this.
And soon, the entire seat is done and ready to go back into service.
2 comments:
Out of curiosity, why do you go to the trouble of removing both old layers of material rather than just applying a third layer over the top? I presume that must be what the last guy must have done since there were 2 layers already in place?
C Kronenwetter
There are several reasons, which is why having even two layers of covering is very rare. I think the second layer was probably added at Wheaton. At the end of service, they were just trying to fix things in a hurry.
1) Both of the old layers were already coming loose.
2) The main reason is that you need to remove all tacks from the wood before adding a new layer of covering. Otherwise the new tacks will be hitting the heads of the old tacks, and getting bent out of shape. This happened in many places when the second layer was installed.
3) There's very limited clearance on the sides of the cushion for the arms that hold the back. With three layers of covering, the arms would just rip the material off when the seats are being changed back and forth.
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