Mary Ann: Now for the project if you know you are going to replace everything, one of the
things you need to think about a little bit is the density of the foam. When you go
to the fabric store to buy foam they have all different types of foam there and
some of them are really, really soft they’re really not meant for sits like this are
they?
Michael: No, actually I would go to the firmer foam for the sit like this. You only utilize an
inch and half of foam and a little bit of Dacron and foam thus gets softer the more
you sit on it so think of that.
Mary Ann: Oh so just flatten that.
Michael: Yes, if you don’t start with the firm foam to start with anything all firm and give
me too hard to sit. Actually not, you’re using so little and you need the firm foam
just for body.
Mary Ann: Now, what you can’t find on the website is we can provide you with a piece of the
foam and the piece of the bonded polyester just enough to do one sit. And that kits
is pretty inexpensive so if you want the right density of foam and you want to
bonded that the professionals use rather that quilt pad you can find those on the
websites and it comes as a kit.
Michael: I will show you why this bonded polyester is so important.
Mary Ann: Okay.
Michael: Let’s first lay out this sit as far as marking our foam, okay. We are just going to
place the sit and of course this our top and we are going to put that down on the
foam okay. Now, a nice way to do it is if you push the board down into the foam
you are going to see where the foam meets the edge of the board.
Mary Ann: Oh why do I need to do that?
Michael: Well what we want is enough foam to cover down to the bottom edge.
Mary Ann: Oh so it doesn’t believe that—
Michael: So if you just mark it the same sizes the board, the foam is actually going to be
too small.
Mary Ann: Well and not only that that when you set up against the edge that you are going to
fill the edge of the board you really don’t want to fill that you rather have a little
foam covering on that so—
Michael: We wanted the floor around.
Mary Ann: Okay.
Michael: So, but we don’t wanted to go underneath the board okay. What we want to do is
allow just a right amount so that our edge rounds over. So just push that board in
there and just take your marker and just push it in. Now make sure the board
doesn’t catch on you when you are doing this.
Mary Ann: Oh yeah they off there.
Michael: You are trying to be a little off but if you just take your time, okay. So that’s nice
and even there will come to the back and do the same. What you will find out is if
you look there is about 3/8 of an inch.
Mary Ann: That’s about— okay.
Michael: Of excess okay. So if like with me I know what that it be so I’ll just—
Mary Ann: You just know how to brace that pencil at against that to do that.
Michael: Yup.
Mary Ann: They can just mark it.
Michael: We just—
Mary Ann: But I do like the idea pushing that down because once you do that you can
actually see what the causes for the foam you are using and see how it’s going to
really meet up against the edge there.
Michael: Exactly.
Mary Ann: It’s a great tip.
Michael: Yeah, it’s a felt too.
Mary Ann: Now, on Michael’s goes to cut the foam. Michael is going to use one of the
professional cutters that we have on the shop but if you don’t have one of those
foam cutters because they’re very expensive you can use the electric knife that
you have in the kitchen the one you use for the turkey.
Michael: Yes.
Mary Ann: And that’s works really, really well.
Michael: A carving knife.
Mary Ann: A carving knife and that’s a ridges edge you know moving up and down with
those two blades is what’s going to help you cut this. This is a little too thick to
cut with the scissors you don’t want to do that because the edges are really going
to be uneven.
Michael: Well I assure you, if you took your scissors and you cut this and you get into the
edges that are not straight up and down.
Mary Ann: Yeah that’s an angle like that.
Michael: Like an angle, so it’s hard to control and this is a upholstery chairs.
Mary Ann: Right.
Michael: Okay, if you notice we’ve got our board and our pattern laid out now.
Mary Ann: It looks so big but when you tell me that you are going to wrap it on the edge
make it sense then, okay.
Michael: Okay, our next step. Now, if you are going to use the knife carver place a piece of
cardboard down when you do that because then you hold your knife upright and
you turn it on and you will actually hear those blade hit the cardboard.
Mary Ann: But that up and down angle is perfect because you really want this to be vertical.
You don’t want it to be angled one way or the other because you are going to be
short some foam or you have going to be too much if you angle it.
Michael: Actually we need a small centerboard to just— and so this saw how it work it
really saves time.
Mary Ann: Now the other thing for your kit, you will end up and if you do by the kit you will
end up with the kit that just has that rectangle of foam because every shape is
going to be a little with different. Some are tape at the back and some are wider at
the front and this one obviously has quite a big shape of the back because it fits
inside to curve on this chair so we can’t cut this out for you, you need to cut those
out for yourself they some what your chair looks like.
Michael: Each chair is so individual but we do give you enough foam to where you can use
any of them on chair sit’s, which exception of a very few which are oversize
chairs.
Mary Ann: Right.
Michael: But you don’t run into that very often.
Mary Ann: Okay.
Michael: This will cover 95% of the chairs.