My dad used to do a lot of DIY upholstering and refinishing.  

I recently acquired another of my "ultimate office chair" 1940's office
chairs, this one rather annoyingly redone in red vinyl leatherette.  So that's
where this item starts...

20 responses total.

Since I like these chairs so much, and tend to find them cheap (I've got two
so far, and the recent one was all of $40 from the Treasure Mart, the other
$20 from a garage sale), that I expect to keep them for the rest of my life.
So, a quality reupholstery job is called for.  I'm lucky in that the first
one is still covered in the original leather, and that the new one used the
same upholstery design.  So I know what I want it to look like, and I've got
the new one to strip and analyze the construction.

First step, aside from disassembly, is doing the seat.  I found a good source
for leather hides & half-hides & remnants at http://www.justleather.com. 
They're pretty cool, in that on a rather no-frills website they have a photo
(against a background marked in square feet) of each hide.  I ended up getting
a half hide of very dark, old-looking, and thick leather for about $85. 
Enough to do 3-4 seats!  Might be too stiff for the back, though.
Anyway, I checked out a couple of upholstery books from the library to get
some background & techniques.  I got webbing and cotton stuffing from Hancock
Fabrics in the Maple Village shopping center, from their upholstery section.
I'll leave most of the detail to the library books, except that neither of
them really talked about leather.  What I was looking to do was match the
other chair by stretching the leather over the seat and tacking it to the
bottom, which requires avoiding big gathers at the corners.  After playing
with a small bit of leather and the end of a 2x4, I ended up soaking the new
seat leather in warm/hot water for about 50 minutes (probably even longer
would have been better), then using nylon cord through holes in the edges to
do the initial stretch and just to get it into the right place on the seat.
Then I started tacking, using a pair of vise-grips to grab the edge and
stretch further.  This took some finagling around the corners (not sharp
corners, curved areas) and a few extra tacks later.  Finally, I cut the edges
down to ~1/4+ past the tacks, and added a few tacks where things were wrinkled
up.  

You are welcome to look at my leather swivel/adjustable office chair for more
ideas.  The stitching was worn out and we fixed it with one of those curved
needles that come in kits, which I had been using to repair shoes.

Time to make a decision on the wood frame, which lost some finish during
overzealous cleaning (oops) and is slightly banged up anyway.  I guess it's
too late to do anything but restain the base, but the chair back is still OK.
Got some wax left to remove, though.

Turns out the chair was made by the W.H. Gunlocke company, which is still in
business making office furniture.  There's also a nameplate from the Baker
Office Furniture Co., which I guess would have been a dealer.  Back then
dealers stuck their own badge on stuff they sold...

Finally some progress, after a busy weekend.  I got the base wood pieces fully
sanded, and this evening glued back together.  Time to go pick out a finish
product(s).

Interesting bit of upholstery-related movie trivia:  On those big chairs with
the decorative tack-heads for trim, there's a cheater product which is a
continuous strip of fake decorative tack-heads, with every 3rd or 4th having
a hole for a real tack to hold it in place.  This product is called "gimp".
And yet, if you do a Google for "Tarantino upholstery gimp" you find that
apparently nobody has ever noticed this before.

Took a loose section of wood to the hardware store, picked out MinWax "Red
Mahogany" as a very close match.  I've currently gotten the base stained and
the first coat of polyurethane applied.

Added 2nd coat of polyurethane to base, and a day to dry (this is not the
water-based stuff...).  Looks wonderful from a distance, a bit sloppy close
up.  I don't think I'll bother doing the whole job on the back frame, though.
Just a touch-up and the polyeurethane.

So with the base finished I assembled enough to use as a stool.  Pretty nice
to sit on, although I could have crammed a bit more padding in.

Well, despite my intentions earlier I ended up completely sanding the back
frame.  I discovered enough loose joint that I needed to disassemble and
reglue, at which point sanding would be pretty easy.  And they were pretty
beat up, actually...

So, I sanded the exposed parts down.  I also needed to replace a couple of
glue pegs, which wasn't quite as difficult as I thought anyway.  At the moment
the frame is sitting in clamps, having been glued up this morning.  Tomorrow
I'll finish sanding (with 220 grit) and then start with the stain.

If you have sanded the back you ought to also varnish it so it won't warp due
to differences in humidity of the wood.

Don't worry, it'll be properly finished.

The polyurethane on the back frame is done, and it looks great.  I was a
little more careful to brush on thin coats this time, and there's only one
tiny thick runny spot.  Well worth the trouble, now that it's done.

Now we're down to stuff which doesn't need to dry!  In theory I could finish
it today.  Probably not, though.  I'll likely get the padding done and save
the leather for tomorrow, since I'm going to want to spend some time
practicing the sewing on scraps.

Do you have a leather needle?  They are three-cornered and work a lot better
than the ones that are round in cross section.

Yeah, I bought a packet of leather needles at the sewing store.  They only
had #14, and I might need #16 (heavier gauge) because of the thick leather.
I'll be doing some practice on scraps, and I'll find out then.

Update:  Got the initial padding done, and the piece of leather cut.  I need
some kind of leather glue, though.  It'll be sewn, but I want to glue as a
temporary measure while I'm getting the edge folds right.  I spent about 1/2
an hour making a canvas version of the most difficult piece.

Jim offers to look for our can of contact cement, a quart of it.

I've got a couple glues to test out here, so no rush.

Change in plans.  I tracked down some #16 leather needles, but even then the
3 layers I need in one spot is going to be iffy.  And then there's how it
would fit on the piece.  

So I'm doing it a bit differently. I'm going to avoid sewing altogether,
instead doing a little bit of careful trimming and stretching to use one piece
of leather for the whole back.  The way things are set up it should work out
pretty well.  We're now a long way from the original, which had 4 panels sewn
together and some fancy edge handling, but with the thickness of the new
material that's just not possible.

Made a canvas test piece, then cut out the leather piece for the back.  Went
pretty much as I'd expected, even hoped.  Except for a loose joint I found
in the process... damnit!  Guess the "Gorilla Glue" isn't perfect after all.
Not much to do about it now, except squeeze some Titebond in through the back,
"clamp" it up with some string, and wait for 24 hours.  I'll probably sneak
a screw in there, too.

Despite that I got the leather pretty much done, aside from some trimming.
Looks pretty good, but not perfect.  Close enough, anyway.  Final step will
be to cover the backside of the back with some upholstery cloth (much easier
to work with, doesn't need to have the wear resistance of the working
surfaces), bolt the back to the mechanism, and nail the little nameplate back
on.

It's finally done!  I felt kind of stupid going to the fabric store for 11
cents worth of tacking strip, but I couldn't quite find anything similar
enough in the house.

Overall, I'm quite happy with how it turned out.  I could point out a few
things that aren't perfect, but I've seen equivalent problems on store-bought
stuff.

Half a hide is a *lot* of leather... I had enough left over to make a vest
for wearing under my chainmail, and there are still a few pieces left.  Wonder
what else I need?

You can use the leather to make mocassins.  The public library has books on
shoemaking.  I used old pocketbooks to make my shoes.  I think we still have
some eyelets left, somewhere.  You essentially put your feet on the leather
and trace them for the soles, then put another piece on top and trace that
for the tops, and add a tongue.  Then glue on rubber soles below.

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