I am speechless. I cannot fathom how much time that must have taken. I know you said hundreds of hours but wow. I got into the upholstery trade in Denver around the same time you did. I also was focusing on antiques, but the recession of the late 80s pushed me into other lines of work to support my family. I still do some pieces for friends and family but I am decade's behind in terms of the skill you display.
I struggled a lot of years but was a part-time paid driver for our local fire department which helped me limp through tough times. Thank you for your kind words.
This is the kind of work that can be said only a master craftsman can do. Thank you very much, Buckminster, for giving us the opportunity to learn the craft with your wonderful videos May God continue to bless you for your excellent work and effort.
I thought I was the only one who tuned in just for the relaxation of watching you turn out another masterpiece, but I see there are others here who enjoy this as well! Psychiatrists should start prescribing your videos instead of anti anxiety meds! I'll bet that chair is like sitting in a cloud! Beautiful!
I recovered a tufted chaise last month that had a rounded back. You’d bet it was stapled on until we tore it down. There was a rounded metal bar to shape the top edge of outside back, nothing to staple to. It was all hand sewn like yours. Perfection with yours also. God I bet there was atleast 40 hours upholstering the one I had. The boss spent an hour hand cutting plywood to screw to the metal rod so I could recover it. You guys have so much skill that hardly any upholsterer could tough nowadays, including me. Kudos
I have to say that was a amazing play list to watch.Beautiful Chair.The time and handwork that went in to both the original chair and your restoration, I am gobsmacked.Thank you.
I don't know if this would be helpful to you, but I discovered that when I'm sewing on a material that is difficult to penetrate with the needle, wearing a nitrile glove on my needle hand improves my grip and reduces fatigue.
Amazing work! Thank you for sharing. I'm new to upholstery and I must say this is very intimidating to say the least! You certainly made it look effortless.
3rd generation upholster here. Very nice work! Probably the best hunderd and fifty dollars those people have ever spent. Hahaha Two things, I was always warned to stay away from. 1) tufted baby buggy. 2) a Turkish chair. 😆. Both extremely time consuming to do! Take care 👍
I do upholstery and there is no way would even try this project. Truly magnificent job, my hat off to you. I f you ever sell this, the time and labor to do this Would be astronomical. Great Job!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I did a wire chair like that and I think I charged $500 labour. I didn't make a cent on the job but I did it just for the challenge. You don't see many wire chairs in the trade.
+Noelle Rose The photo is clearly marked as copyrighted by the photographer. 100+ years later I wonder if it's a problem? I bet the photographer would be thrilled to share it under these circumstances.
I can't get enough of your videos. Can I tell you a story. I have a neighbor that has passed away. He was an upholsterer (mainly hot rods and such). Well, his wife is cleaning out years of junk, and she had this wonderful chair off to the side. She said that she got it from a friends estate, who said that it came over on the oregon trail, and that her husband was going to reupholsterer it. He never got around to finishing it. So, the other day I saw that she had put it on the curb to be thrown away. I grabbed it and put it temporarily in my shed. I did some research into the chair and I think it's a William IV era chair. I would love to send a picture to you. Right now its only the frame and springs. I can email you some photo's.
Hi Kim, lovely video. I opened up an antique settee I had. I realised it has no springs, only webbing with horse hair, some I guess coconut fibre and cotton on top. I am planning to reupholster it myself. My question, should I throw the horse hair? Its a mess, has lot of powdery stuff falling from it. Or should I re-use it?
+shankyxyz Recently I've explored washing and picking apart antique stuffing materials and find that they do restore satisfactorily. I have another video planned in demonstrating this with sea weed, sea grass, flax straw, horse hair and moss. If you want to invest the time the hair is worth salvaging.
Thank you for sharing this video series. You are masterful at your craftsmanship! Very inspiring! Do you have any tips for restoring horse hair that has been sprayed with natural rubber...?
Thank you for getting back to me. It's not matted into sheet goods. It just looks like it has been lightly sprayed with some tiny globs of something(kind of like dried wood glue/orange color). I'm going out on a limb assuming it's natural latex... The hair is very loose like normal horsehair. Ever see anything like that before?
Out of interest, considering this amazing art work and number of labour hours spent on this project, how much does this restoration work cost? Is it worth the effort?
Hello, its me again. I was looking for a video of the Chesterfield sofa of your profile picture. This is extraordinary work again. Wow is all I can say. You say that you have been upholstering for 40 years. Where did you apprentice?
48 years ago as I write, I was taking an upholstery course with around 100 classroom hours at an area college. Following that, I worked for 15 months in a saddle-tack shop which introduced me into business but it wasn't an apprenticeship, so to speak. Aside from the 1950's platform rocker I upholstered in class, I haven't had any formal training. Fully self-educated. Woodworking skills were taught in high school industrial arts classes. Feel free to contact me via my website for more information. Again, best wishes from the middle of America.
@@Buckminsterupholstery That is awesome. I have 4 saddles and some bridles since childhood, my Mom seems to sew like you do and always mended any of our tack. I really admire this kind of handwork, but moreso your absolutely beautiful upholstery work. Thank you for sharing it with us, I really appreciate it. I look on the map where City Falls Nebraska is ... far away from Johannesburg. Looking forward to the new videos. Kind regards
That is an amazing piece. The only problem seems to be the very small number of people willing to pay for a piece that needs this much work. It's a shame that a lot of times the owners would rather strip everything off and install foam and cheap vinyl.
I had some frustrations and had to back-track a number of times. Actual time spent well exceeded 200 hours. Shooting video as I worked added even more hours to the project.
+Laurel Villanueva In my quest to learn this craft I've always had a mindset that "if they could do it then, I can do it now." I've had no formal education aside from personal experience. Replication has (most) always been my objective. It pains me to use modern materials in antiques. If I'm working with "modern" furniture I use like-suited synthetic materials. You can replicate the look with modern synthetics but I also see replication of feel is equally important. Horse hair certainly stands the test of time.