Ercol Chair

This Ercol chair had lost its support! The old Pirelli webbing had solidified and broken – new webbing must be added.

On a positive note though, the frame was in excellent shape and the two cushions, while worn on the outside, had good pads which will be reused.

The new covers for the two seat cushions will be made in the same way as the original Ercol ones.

The cushion pads were both shaped to fit the seat and back and to sit against each other on the seat.

The cushion covers were both box type with zips.

Two matching cover pieces were cut and a zipped gusset made. The seams between each face and the gusset are made the same way as for ‘normal’ box covers – sewing around the seam with good faces of the pieces of fabric together.  

Once made, the seams were pressed back and top stitched on both sides of the seam. While this is a bit fiddly, sewing from the inside of the cover the results are a very neat finish to the cover.

The old pads were pushed into the covers to complete this part of the project.

The shaping of the covers was important to ensure the two cushions both fit to the frame and also to each other.

The old Pirelli webbing had become brittle and had broken long ago.

Each piece of webbing on this Ercol chair has a riveted loop on each end. To hold a piece of webbing in place, these loops are pushed through slots in the seat frame and held there with dowels slipped through the loops from underneath the frame.

While simple in theory, in practice the process though is not so easy! Each piece of webbing must be just the right length – so when in place it will be tightly stretched to support the cushion. Each end is folded and riveted to hold.

The first end is simply pushed through a slot, a dowel slipped in and the web pulled up to lock in place.

The second end is then pushed into the opposing slot and pulled down very hard until a dowel can be inserted. When released the dowel is pulled up to lock the web in place.

The six pieces of webbing were added, woven together.

With cushions positioned on the chair, the project was complete.

JBerryUpholstery has many examples of furniture Recovering and Restoration and also Soft Furnishings to add to or complement the finished items. You can see pictures of these in the Galleries – Recovering Gallery, Restoration Gallery, Soft Furnishings Gallery and Transformations.

If you have some upholstery that is in need of a bit of TLC or you are interested in Soft Furnishings then please contact us.