The Upholstery Forum

Howdy! I'm new here. I recently found, purchased and retrofitted w/ a brushless servo motor a '68 Consew Model 18 and am learning to use it, get the stitching right and keep the machine tip-top.
So much to learn...only made my first stitch on a sewing machine, a borrowed Singer 413 Stylist, in May.
For the moment I'm a waste-thread manufacturer above all. The floor is littered with Tex90 white Nylon thread.

Got a possibly goofy question: In making practice pieces I began attempts to make welting. Around the house I collected together cording to accomplish that. I found the on-hand cord that appeared to make the nicest welting to be 1/4" screen spline, and looking up that 'cord' found it cost roughly the same or less than 'real' welting cord.

Question is, is there any compelling reason not to use it?

Thanks!

FA

Really you just have to determine if you are using it for automotive or marine? Is the cord fabric or plastic?Fabric meaning paper and often reffered to as T-Braid.

Automotive and home. Screen spline is soft-ish plastic, a ribbed hollow tube, and keeps its shape very well.
I found 100' lengths at 9.99 on Amazon.
Haven't torture-tested the stuff but as its normal use is holding window screen it must be reasonably sturdy.

Go for it and let us know how it works out.

If it works, use it. Paper, plastic, cotton braid, etc are used as "welt cord" so if this plastic extrusion works it's likely fine. I don't think "welt cord failure" is a concern.

Thanks. As soon as the white vinyl shows up, I intend to use the spline when I make new covers for a pair of LLoyd Loom bouncy chairs I've had forever.
Until then I have Cechaflo, Old School Upholstery and MECA videos to re-re-rewatch and whatever derelict material I can find to practice on.



Here is an example of a Lloyd Loom chair. As you can see, it's pretty simple but I will definitely find every option to screw the job all the way up.

I have used 1/8” weed whip line for making it on non criticize pieces, seems to work just fine.

chair looks nice! I havent been on here in a while , super busy . so I thought i would catch up little,

It does look nice, which I can say as it's not my chair but an image of the same model as mine.
It will be off-white with off-white piping, waiting on the vinyl.
In the meantime I'm making caps, as they are tricky to get right so seems a good set of lessons to help grasp upholstery.


This one's made of heavy canvas and the stitching's lousy but I made a similar one last night from vinyl and it turned out much better.
Sewing is hard, you guys! Managed to teach myself how to draw and paint and weld sheetmetal but this is harder.
I have to think upside-down backwards for every little seam and how to make one stitch hold several components together.

What's funny nowadays is when I watch a film I focus on all the seams I see in the clothing and sets.
Quite a world to try to learn about.

Report: Sewed up 65 feet of welting with the screen spline and it seems to work fine but I've never used any of the legit welting cord so I've no direct comparison to make.
Since it measures out very close to the 3/32" dimension of the white plastic stuff it may be a solution if one runs out of that in the middle of a job as the spline is easy to find at hardware stores.

If Upholstery was easy , everyone would be doing it. Often i find people bringing me their stuff that they have tried to do. I get it have no pattern to go by , just have to draw it out , hope for the best. Usually comes out good.

You're right about that.



D-U-N done, both chairs, plus a little back pillow- first project complete.

What have I learned? Screen spline seems fine for welting cord; even with the foam cut to oversize to fill the boxes, one will still get a few wrinkles without the use of a bit of polyester batting - I have no Silk Skin so did not want to add the batting as getting the foam into the boxes was a bit of a struggle; that there are multiple ways to sew in zippers but I tried my own version which seems to work well; that next time I will pay more for thicker vinyl- this stuff's a wee bit thin which probably makes for more wrinkles, that a Consew Model 18 is a cantankerous machine what with having no reverse, meaning locking everything is a bit of a chore, but I'm getting used to the old bulldozer. Feel like it's always yelling at me. It's probably good to learn on something relatively unforgiving, have to work harder and plan farther ahead.
Oh, and doing this when it's really hot out is tough, like boot camp.

Overall it's a pretty satisfying thing, this business of making a beat-up old thing nice again. After making a few more hats and doing some mending and alterations for friends' clothes, I will plot and scheme the big project, a whole new interior for the 1960 Corvair Coupe- split bench, folding rear seat, door cards and headliner. Bet it takes a year!.

I'm new at this too but just wanted to ay your cushions turned out great! I'm gearing up to do some Jeep seats and maybe a boat interior over the winter, hope mine turns out half as good as yours.

Thanks very much. Trust me when I say if I can do this, anyone can. Practice, practice, practice.
Did I say practice? Practice.

You're not from Wisconsin are you? Your avitar looks like the Trig's Red Owl sign -

Ha! Nope- grew up in SoDak, where there were many Red Owl stores at the time.
Always thought it was a dandy logo, perfectly graphically sound while being just a tad malevolent.

I read up on Red Owl, I guess there is still one in Green Bay. I'm in Indiana but vacation a lot in Northern WI. Didn't realize they were sort of centered in the North Central part of the country, glad I'm not the only one that remembers them ..... maybe need to make that an emoji!

They did turn our great!

Your cushions look great! I have an old Consew too, a model 19. Got a servo motor and man that is the cats meow!

Thank you! Bet your 19 is wa-a-a-ay better than the 18- it's really crabby in the thread-tensioning department but I'm making it work.