Upholstery techniques for Stickley-style craftsman chairs
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I recently picked up the book “Making Authentic Craftsman Furniture”, which is a collection of project plans from Gustav Stickley’s old magazine called The Craftsman. These were originally published between 1903 and 1907. I’d like to make a chair or two from the book to match my (future) craftsman-style house. My problem is that the plans aren’t really that detailed, so I might be missing something here — but it seems that the way he did upholstery for chair seats is to stretch canvas across the seat width and over the sides, without having a solid base beneath it, followed by “webbing”, “stuffing”, muslin, and finally the outer cover. I’m not sure what the webbing and stuffing materials are, but I imagine they could be replaced by foam.
My main question is: should I try following this method exactly? I’m concerned that not having a solid base beneath the canvas would cause the seat to sag eventually. Or maybe it’s implied that there’s a solid base beneath the canvas layer?
I’m thinking that, if nothing else, I could adapt Paul’s technique to these chairs. I’m not sure how wrapping the seat materials over the sides would work in that case though.
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This topic was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by
Upholsterer Mike Mascelli recently did a series of videos for Fine Woodworking on the basics of upholstery that gets you past the foam-on-a-board stage of upholstery with a minimal tool kit which you may already have or can put together for a few bucks.
The first two videos are free and the second shows how to do a webbing based seat deck that is more comfortable than a board. The whole series is free with a FWW membershipThe second video shows two ways to build the deck – with steel snake spring or with upholstery webbing.
If you hunt around YouTube, he has other videos that might be a help.. just google his name.
You’ll at least be able to tell if it’s for you or if you should farm it out, and gives you tips on what to watch out for as you build the chair.
It covers woods to use to make the upholstery’s job easier and how to build a proper seat frame for upholstery.Thanks a ton Larry, this is very helpful!
It’s kinda funny.. my great aunt and uncle did upholstery for 40 years or something like that, and I thought it was boring. I should have asked for some lessons 🙂
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