American Victorian Sofa: Stripping & Measuring for Fabric

so the very first thing that we're going to do on strip that we're actually reversing what the upholsterer did so we're starting from the last thing that he did the last thing they upholstered did the last time was place this wood piece on the top after all been a pulsing I'll show you what I mean so some of these come off easy and some don't this one happened to come off really easy but these are dowels and usually they glued and they're a little harder to take off if you do a piece that's that's how to just be careful with the chisel do not use a tack remover use a chisel but be very gentle when you're trying to pry it up and do it slow the time you'll hear the glue cracking and just really ease it off so that's that so our side cut is a great tool to have when you slip in furniture but we're going to have a wooden mallet and we're going to have a tack remover so I'm going to start with my pipe grips and what I'm going to do is I'm going to work the which is glued on I'm going to work a corner up and then I'm going to cut it right here and now I'm going to carefully I'm careful like don't you obviously do not use the wood for leverage if you're going to use any part of the sofa use the old fabric come down this way now if you're lucky the fabric comes separate from the I mean the gift comes separate from the fabric so this is what I'm trying to do I'm trying to separate the two so that I can take this off here we go so I would like to see that I cut this right yeah and sometimes you could just pull now on some veneer pieces you have to be careful here when you're pulling and you don't take the veneer but on this piece here because it's not veneered it's a solid piece of wood that's been finished it comes right off and so I try to be as gentle as I can so the comes off first and then I see staples so we know looking at the staples onto this fabric that's not the original upholstery that's it that's an indication staples came into popularity probably about 1980s and this sofas at least a hundred years older than that so but to take staples out we can use that tack removal which is also a staple remover and again you don't want to come this way this is a beautiful piece of wood so we want to keep it that way so what you want to do is just gently using a mallet try to get under the staple coming this way your fabric side and lift it lift up and with the side cutters take staple out the rest of the way now notice how I'm starting on the back of the sofa this is what we need to do for us we're still reversing what the upholstery did so I'm going to just show you a couple more techniques here sometimes with the side cutters what I do is and I kind of eliminate one step with the mallet and yet be careful when you do this just maybe for you advance people tap tap lift let them using the back side of my my side cuttest and then I lift it sometimes when you get the fabric going now as you know your your fabric is not going to be you sometimes we do repair work so you couldn't do this on a repair job what what we're going to do is we're just going to sometimes you know we can get the fabric started and use the fabric is leverage pull it like this carefully be very careful notice what I'm doing my my right hand when I'm pulling this I'm not just pulling this I'm supporting this antique sofa now for those of you who aren't as advanced you may want to just use the method of tap tap lift and then go to your side cuts okay I'm trying to show you an advanced way of doing it also and I'm going to take this off completely this back again I know that this fella promised all the cotton I'm going to try to save the cotton sometimes customers want to be authentic as possible so they de la subida we use the as much of the original material as you cans lines it's not and you know smell your bike and buy them faster than that of course you would do it you're talking a difference okay so now this is the outside back and the outside back is stitched okay so we're going to say we're going to save all our cover a professional pulsar like myself I don't really need to save it for patterns but sometimes I like to save it as patterns just to just for a reference because I kind of like what I like here as I see that they lined up the inside vaccine with the outside vaccine so I kind of like that so I might do it the same but I haven't made up my mind I'll keep it so this is going to comes out on both sides undo this simple as that and then this is good this is coming off pretty good a lot of times on all the fabric on old avoid the staples don't go in as well so that you can pull a fabric and I'm going to pull down sometimes you can pull the cap around like this take it off the bottom so what I'm trying to do is a sensitive strip job as I can on this I don't want to use a lot of heavy tack heavy hammering I want to try to preserve the peace as much as I can so now that the outside back is off I'm going to go now and with my fingers now you be careful when you do this I want to make sure that every square inch is stripped clean of all those old staples and they're all sticking up there you can't see but they're all sticking out you know you need to make sure you're going and get it everyone okay okay after we do that I'm going to carefully come to the end of the arm and continue with my method see how I'm holding the wood want to show you now after you get your outsides off so you start with the outside back and the outside out you go and you go over like so and you make sure with your fingers don't trust your eyes that you have all the staples that are in there the better job that you do it's stripping a piece of furniture the better it's going to look when you're upholstering it because you don't want these staples in your way okay sometimes you can dig out them sometimes you need to take your tool just tap it over for those of you who aren't quite sure about the side cutters as a hammering tool take your mallet lightly tap tap and lift see how nice that came up and then you come and you take it out the rest of the way right so all that needs to be stripped before we get into the insides now that's a whole different ballgame on the insides so what we're going to do is carefully peel away the cotton and like I said I save the cotton for now and then this is kind of neat hopefully we'll be able to see a date on this you know I'm put in a date of 1860 on this so be interesting to see sometimes I'm surprised too with other things and I just saw something out might want to see this there are buttonholes in this piece and when we get to the front wheels we'll take a look at right now there are no buttons showing on this piece so I'm hoping that the upholstery we did this loss just simply went over the beautiful tufting that might be under this it's always a bonus now if I find that I will call the client and ask if that's what they want it's always better to do original and this is what I find often times changes that are made there okay to make those changes as long as you kept the integrity of the piece on the knee so I'm just going to roll this off just say that I doubt very much now that I'm looking at this and all the dust coming off that I'm going to reuse this I'm going to put a new piece on it's a little too old okay so we have to get the the insides are coming through here to the outside so we have to prep that so when we go to the front to start stripping by the front cover so what I'm going to do is I'm going to take this piece off and look what we find it at all to find all of the cover coming from the seat and the inside that comes this way see that so this piece this is just a piece of old burlap that is no good it's called a stretcher we will replace this so I don't need to save this I'm going to throw this away don't need to make patterns with that that's simply an extra piece usually I use fabric because burlap tends to do what you see on has caved in okay so that's not good I mean the whole purpose of doing this with the stretcher is to add support so that when your knee hits when you're moving a piece of furniture by yourself this doesn't happen this is good to see this in action while you do it yourself is don't use burlap try not to use burlap the other thing too is when you fill this away it would have been nice if they had used a piece of webbing down here piece of webbing would have added more support and then put your stretcher over would have it a much better idea so I'm just going to take that and rip this off oh it's always a surprise you take an old piece office like this apart kind of neat okay so now I need to take this fabric this is the inside deck that's coming down being stapled here and they have this is the fabric and this is a stretch up put onto that fabric it's just another piece of fabric so look how easy that's nice and sometimes we find little things that come through here I just found a bazooka Joe Oh an old one too if I had more time I read that to you but it's kind of fun finding stuff it's kind of like a treasure hunt so let's see what else we're going to find here you never know oh we got money that's the change to buy coffee later on and what else we have oh I love this like a treasure hunt so this piece what we want to do with this piece folks we want to ping tack this up so that we're not stripping that right away on the inside back and you'll see in a minute what why that's a good idea is need to get a couple of you can use staples so I have my staple gun I'm going to pin tack or pin staple this fabric which is the inside back fabric up to the top here it's just a temporary stable you could do that with tax folks - if you're not comfortable to staple gun but it's important at this pot up so that you can get in here and take this off this is the sea okay you're loosening just loosening for now okay and then clean all your staples up go back and clean up all your staples and the best way to do it I do it at least see all these stables hey we'll clean that up I do it at least three times look take the staples and then I fail take the staples and go back again and and again it's very important that you get every single staple that's attacked that's sticking up clean the piece up as best you can because later on that will either get you like it got me earlier with the staple or the fabric will rip on a staple like that so I'm going to go over to the side now here we go again into the pouch area or the money hole some people call it this is about as close as I'm going to get to be in an Indiana Jones archaeologist and I ever will be because this is where you find I mean we took the back off found a pocketful of change and a Joe bazooka I actually got more excited of the Joe bazooka cartoon because I remember those as a kid but anyhow and which which gives me a date on the fabric by the way you know that the fabric might have been from the 70s so I'm going to take this off who knows what we're going to find you finding this quite interesting this piece so don't know so we got here we got toothpicks we got some cereal which is normally what we find that's something else fell there I don't know what that was I guess we'll leave that for the sweeper so we didn't find so much here but that's okay it was fun we had some anticipation there so I'm taking taking the top off the inside on and the seat I'm going to do is on the inside on portion I'm going to pin tack that up you'll see the why when we go to the front why this is so important to pin tack this up of course he's going to go back and clean up all these staples that's it so I'm reading I went to read my bazooka Joe and I realize it's in Hebrew and I'm really amazed at that most of my mentors would would you - speakers so this brings back a lot of memories to me it's what I love about this about this business we never know what we're going to find so let's move on so the next thing we're going to do is we're going to take this the front of the seat off very carefully like we've been doing and that seat is going to be removed the fabric only and we have we have the benefit a very good seat it's in good shape whoever did this last time we store this so that we we don't have to restore it we're going to reupholster it which the client is charged for but again I want to show you how the comes off first with your side cut is and I think if you're very careful you can use the fabric is a little bit of a wedge but not the wood because we're trying to preserve this beautiful antique hand cop wood so what I'm going to do is I'm going to come up I'm going to come behind it look at that I love it when I'm able to take fabric off like this it's so much nicer not to ruin a piece by you know if these were tough if these were big twelve fourteen up stacks in here and we needed to use the mallet you know oftentimes you do need to use the mallet but notice how I'm twisting in inside not outside we want to preserve that wood so I'm really liking this so I'm going to do is I'm going to hold on with my hands those of you who don't like getting cut you may want to use gloves but I don't use gloves because I get a feel for what I'm doing I'm applying pressure onto the fabric but I'm holding with it my right hand my left hand is pain pressure my right hand is holding so that I don't rip the fabric this way but I'm putting some leverage on and the staples are coming out with the fabric and and all love to see that I'm not worried about the nail on this I'm just going to continue well you know you guys can't see this at the backside you continue going once I get momentum right I like to use it I'm going to finish taking this the left side off I'm going to come back down to you okay so the front is completely undone and the back is also with the added pin tagging of the insides so that when I go to pull the seat fabric this pattern beautiful pattern fabric that's been cut for us doesn't come with it with it that's very important so we're doing a really low impact stripping of the antique sofa to try to preserve as much of the wood and as much as the integrity of the original piece so here I go if I did a good job on the other side this should come out fairly easy and I'm holding the cotton as I pull now look for little treasure sometimes little treasures come here too you know they'll get stucked on me so fine I'll stand your little treasures Oh beautiful this whole seat just came off from a the seat fabric gone beautiful so I'm just going to go back I'm going to Pat got the seat down a little bit to make sure there's nothing can it will for an object and I am going to just quickly check this to see oh now you have a beautiful edge roll here that's in really good shape I may put a piece of burlap a new piece of grow up on that in the front edge but I'm really happy with the way this looks very low impact on the seat sometimes we end up retie in the springs which is a big project you can see that in some other YouTube videos what would what it entails time Springs but this piece is not in for that so the next thing believe it or not at this point we have we're not going to strip this yet on the insides and what we're going to be doing let me explain okay so believe it or not we're upholstery ready on this piece so what we're going to do is we're going to measure this piece up and here are the components to this piece there's a seat inside on two of those inside back lo-lo's outside on two of those and outside back one of those and what we're going to be doing is we're going to actually freshen this up with some new cotton new triple a great cotton and then what we're going to do is pulse to that seat and then we're going to take the back off the back comes off in one piece entirely and again we're going to use a leverage to do that you know why we're not going to go right in and dig in this in right now we're going to get a piece of fabric on the reason out on new fabric is going to be good is it slides through and secures and then we take our pin tacking off the inside and then we take it off from this way after this has been a pulse it we pull on the bottom and we pull using leverage the rest of the and we are going to keep that piece of fabric for patterns we're going to cut cut them to big sizes in the beginning and then take them to pattern sizes because these are these are cuts in here angled cuts and so those put that all in one piece and then do outside ons and outside back and then we're going to put a trim on this glue just like they glue then yep on and then we're done okay so now I'm on my outside arm up and down measurement this is the highest point I'm going to go there I get twenty two plus three that's twenty five inches I'm going to fill that in here twenty five side to side we go all the way here swings all the way around I get thirty two plus three thirty five okay then the last piece will be out outside back outside back up and down I get twenty five plus three that's 28 inside to side we're outside on intersects with the back is right at this point that's what I'm measuring side to side you get fifty two plus three is 55 inches so that's it we got all our measurements now we're going to go to the cutting table so before you start cutting you look over your measurements in this in this example with the fabric we use and we're coming off the roll the correct way so it's 57 inches wide so the important measurements come on this side on the right call okay so I see two good measurements meaning that we can get a width of fabric out of two pieces which is what we're going to cut first so now that we have all of our measurements all about math is on one piece of paper you can see the best use of the fabric that's what you're striving for you look down the columns and see what you can get best out of the fabric so I see right away there are two measurements the seat and the inside bag actually there are three measurements see you inside back and outside back that I can get out of a width of fabric that is probably the best use of fabric that you can get right there the other measurements will will show you as we go along okay so I'm going to do the seat for us a seat measurement is 33 inches front to back and 69 inches wide but I've already measured the seat surface area that's going to be seen is going to be less than 54 so this piece here is going to require us to source stretcher on a piece of fabric doesn't even have to be this piece of fabric it's the fabric that gets tucked inside the chair inside the sofa so we're not worried about that right now so I'm going to cut my seat so I'm going to go up 33 inches from the bottom might by the way this is a beautiful cotton velvet leopard pattern and it's beautiful the naps coming to the front always to the front folks I've already made sure that we're going the correct way so I'm going to go up 33 inches and I'm going to pick up this pattern I'm picking up a pattern sometimes it's high there's the pattern right there right there so this is the way I've cut fathom folks if people want they can use that tape that the best way to do cutting fabric on a pattern knows to go with your pad and follow your patterns cushions are a different thing but we don't have any cushions on this on this project so I'm going to go right along hand I'm going to use my dot dotted line and cut across and then before this fabric leaves the table this is very important mark the cover what it is in the direction so I'm going to mark front F seat so when I put this aside and I pick it up next week or whatever I know that that's the front of the C now no question I'm not going to turn that or turning a cut velvet or a velvet or any fabric practically the wrong way and have a one-piece going the wrong way will ruin your whole job make sure that all your patterns are going the same way all the direct same directions I'm just going to put this inside so that's our seat make sure as you're going along you cross out a bit across that seat you don't want duplicate so I'm going to go to the next full width measurement that I have this is great when you have three it doesn't always happen that way we have three pieces that are a width of the fabric next with it's 55 by 23 gray so I'm going to go up 23 I'm not worried about patents here this is an overall pattern so we're not learning a lot with this fabric but we're learning about measurements which is important the 23 inches I'm going to go up here I'm going to put a little chalk line then I'm going to carry over now pick up my cannon sometimes it's a little harder than right there what's that's experience right there though I'm going to cut that sometimes if you have a shop here at scissors you can just blade it it's called lady right through so the inside bag I'm going to make sure I mark the fabric IB notice the direction that I'm in I'm not at the bottom of this fabric I'm at the top of my back inside bag top and over description is better than being left there later on saying well how do I like that notice I'm in the middle of the fabric - I'm not at a corner don't be at a corner cause then you're wondering which way from the corner if it was a small piece you see you'd see it more why that's not a good idea so I got my inside bag just going to put that aside and I cross that out I'm going to go to my next one now I'm skipping down to by the way to the outside bag I have inside arms and outside arms mixed in there but the outside back is my wits if so I I move around on my measurements I don't go right down down the page that doesn't ever work that way go down the page you always have to get the best measurements first there's real wisdom in this safe fabric all about saving fabric so my outside that measure is 28 by 55 I'm going to about 28 inches I'm going to give a little slash mark there at that pattern pick up this pen and all the way across to pick up on these and now for those of you who don't want to blade it across like I did I'm going to do small little cuts like this on this to that some people are very nervous about cutting I think most people off but you know it's only 300 dollars a yard so don't worry about it and I'm going to fold it back and right outside back top teeth for top okay so with three pieces cut now we get into our oddball measurements and that's what you want to save the last I'm going to cross off the outside back so I have will do the inside arms first which are 23 by 36 so what I'm going to do is I'm going to go up one side of the fabric I'm not going to cross cut and end up with little pieces never do that always leave a piece because we might have a piping well thing go it up I'll show you what I mean by that so we got 36 you need two of these 36 by 23 look I'm just going to put two lines here and now watch this line and a line there I'm going to follow this line up this is my repeat and I'll follow this repeat over here like connect the dots now patterns are nice down this way that's why I'm going to mark this inside on a top okay now you can use this as a pattern for the next one you don't have to go through that process the same process you can just put this up like so the way a fabric get this to lace flat is that as pattern so I have both my inside on I a very important to my dough Bertha can't say that enough once it leaves the table you're in question and that's not good waste time and there's nothing worse than being unsure yourself when you're upholstering of one piece of fabric be surprised how sometimes you can't see it until it's in the clients house you can tell I have experience now this is going to just enough fabric so inside ons we have we have two outside ons left 25 by 35 okay we're really close here so I'm going to do is 25 and I knew I was close on this job folks 25 35 this the outside outside arm Oh a top this is a pattern shall we mock that before it leaves the table outside um top we're done we've the entire sofa cutout and the next step would be to upholster the seat on the sofa and then take the old fabric off the sofa and use that as a pattern so that up and then put that on thanks once again for joining us in the YouTube videos in the upholstery on Broadway channel

Channel: Broadway Upholstery School

Views: 40,414

Rating: 4.8941798 out of 5

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Id: -A4njcwoYno

Length: 30min 26sec (1826 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 26 2016