Sofa Frame Construction: Its Significance in Upholstery

Posted by lakey on October 14th, 2021

Sofa frame and general furniture construction is an extremely important consider upholstery and upholstered furniture. The majority of people take a look at a wonderfully upholstered sofa or armchair and do not see what lies beneath it. The exact same holds true of a person. The external look of a person is identified by the muscles that lie beneath the skin. These muscles are no more powerful than the skeletal bone structure upon which everything else is developed.

The skeleton of a sofa or a chair is its wood frame. We are going over standard furniture here, not items made from tubular steel and artificial foam cushions. A sofa frame need to be solid in order to bear the tensions and strains involved when it is put to use. For a sofa to be comfortable, it needs to be able to tolerate these stresses without sagging.

Furnishings Construction: The Sofa Frame

What applies to a sofa frame likewise applies to a chair. The sofa frame need to be constructed from strong wood. The wood needs to not be so hard that it can decline blue upholstery adds. Frames that are joined with nails or glue tend to be weak and have just a limited life. The strongest wood sofa frames are built using standard jointing strategies.

The primary rectangular frame needs to be formed using thick solid wooden beams, joined at each corner with mortise and tenon joints. Dowel-reinforced butt joints will eventually come apart, and dovetail joints are unsuitable for this kind of thick structure. The wood has to be thick for 2 factors: a) it must hold the weight of those sitting on the sofa, and b) it need to offer a strong base for tacking on the webbing holding the springs and the covers.

The sofa frame will serve as the skeleton for the entire sofa, supporting the seat, the back, and the arms. It is frequently crafted from oak or sometimes a thick kind of softwood such as particular species of pine. This structure is the most essential aspect of furniture construction.

Sofa Seat

Seats on the sofa will traditionally be supported by a layer of woven webbing. Upholstery webbing strips of 2\" or 5 mm width are added to the side, front and back frames and woven across and lengthwise. The lengths are fixed to the frame using 3/4 inch upholstery tack. A web extending tool is needed to get the webbing to the right tension.

Steel coil springs are then tied to the webbing using upholstery twine. The tops of the springs are linked using lengths of upholstery spring twine tied to the top of each spring. Each spring is connected to its neighbor utilizing the very same length of twine. They are connected eight methods, linking all the springs together and the lengths of twine are added to the side, back, and front rails of the sofa.

A canvas cover is then placed over the springs, extended, and tacked to the side rails. The layers of stuffing and cushioning are then added followed by a 2nd layer of canvas to hold everything together. Lastly, the leading upholstery cover is stretched over and added onto the side rails.

You can now see the significance of furnishings construction, and why the rails of the sofa frame have to be so strong and well jointed. They hold every layer of the seat, consisting of the springs, and have a great deal of upholstery tacks inculcated them. The rails then have to bear the weight of a minimum of two people, or even more for a bigger sofa.

Sofa Back

At one time, the back of the sofa was built and upholstered in precisely the same way as the seat, however using shorter springs. To save time, a box spring construction is now used. The springs are kept in a metal framework that is nailed to the back frame. This approach can be utilized due to the fact that the back has less weight to bear than the seat.

The sofa reupholstery layers are then included and tacked to the back frame as regular. The back frame need not be as strong as the seat, and the wood utilized is usually of lower measurements all around. The joints of the back to the seat and arms need to be strong to prevent the back frame from collapsing back.

Summary

A sofa frame should be made from strong, thick wooden beams and crossbars. They must be properly collaborated using mortise and tenon joints because they have a lot of weight to bear and likewise a great deal of upholstery tacks to accommodate. The wood can not be too soft or the tacks will not hold, nor too hard or the tacks will stop working to permeate. Oak, cherry, and specific species of pine are fine.

Furnishings construction is very crucial in upholstered furniture. Unless it is adequately strong it will not have the required strength. The sofa frame should last over 100 years and tolerate numerous reupholstery episodes. The springing, if properly carried out, ought to itself last over 100 years. Just the cushioning and top covers should require replacing in a well-constructed sofa or chair.

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lakey

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lakey
Joined: August 10th, 2017
Articles Posted: 64

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