Expert: Eileen Cronk - 3/14/2009

Question
Eileen, My set has beautiful oak wood that is in good condition. The pieces have drop-in seats that are in poor condition. I have striped the seats down to the springs. The chair springs are of a box type, they are attached to the wooden frame with three heavy metal strips and have the heavy wire around the top and bottom. They have been altered slightly as the seat is not a square, but wider at the front. These springs appear to be in good condition except the smaller cross wires front to back and side to side have broken. The springs are all attached to the bottom metal strips and to the top heavy wire which runs around them. Can I, or should I try to retie these with spring twine before recovering them with burlap? The smaller broken wires are quite stiff. Would it be better to try to obtain some wire to do the job? This set belonged to my grandmother and is at least 75 years old. Thank you for any guidance you can provide, I have done some reupholstering in the past but have not dealt with these types of springs.  Thank you again, Joan

Answer
Hi Joan
Nice to hear from you.
Joan I am far from being an upholsterer, but here is what I know.
These 3 cross wires you see are not meant to be attached to the wooden frame. They are actually only spacers to keep the springs from shifting. And if you can visualize them being fastened to the sides and then sat on you can plainly see they would break.
So forget about the wires.
You are correct to want to retie the springs. This is done with twine as you know.
The most important thing about spring tying is to use the correct knot. I am enclosing for you a site which shows you how to do this.

http://www.upholster.com/howto/zimtie.html

Hope this helps
Kind Regards
Eileen