A webbing stretcher is an upholstery tool used to stretch webbing.
A webbing stretcher is an upholstery tool used to stretch webbing.
Traditional chairs are constructed of an open wooden frame, with their seat often supported by interwoven jute or cotton herringbone webbing. [1] Stuffing is placed upon this, enclosed between hessian, then batting over this and finally the cover fabric. [2] To provide a taut and long-lasting seat, the webbing must be tightened into place. The webbing material must also resist yielding over time, hence the use of a dense herringbone weave, rather than the cheaper hessian webbings also used in upholstery. Where wire springs are to be placed over the webbing, the more abrasion-resistant cotton webbing is used rather than jute.
In the 1950s, an elastic rubber or 'Pirelli' webbing became popular. This is made of black rubber, with an internal canvas reinforcement. This webbing is applied by hand and is not tensioned, the elasticity of the rubber being sufficient. It is attached by metal clips, fitting into grooves in the frame. As the webbing is elastic it is only used in parallel strips, rather than being interweaved: friction between these elastic webs moving over each other would soon abrade their edges.
When the webbing is attached, it is fastened at one end, stretched into place and then held in place with tacks. [2]
Tensioning is done with a simple wooden lever, the webbing stretcher. This looks like a bat or paddle with a simple handle, a locating groove along the opposing edge and a slot in the centre. The webbing is held in place by placing a loop through the slot and locking it with a wooden dowel pin. This pin is usually attached to the stretcher with a short chain or string. [2] Using chain avoids the inconvenient twisting tendency of string.
In use, the grooved edge is located over a convenient edge of the frame to act as the fulcrum of a lever and the stretcher is levered outwards. As the handle is further away from the fulcrum than the slot, there is a mechanical advantage of about 3:1 in the tensioning force that can be generated, compared to simply pulling. [3]
Stretchers are sold commercially, usually made of beech. [4] Many upholsterers make their own though, from workshop offcuts.
Plier-type stretchers are sometimes used, particularly with leather strapping that is too short to allow a loop through a traditional stretcher. These have wide ridged jaws to grip the end of a webbing. A protrusion on one jaw acts as the fulcrum of a lever, to give a powerful tensioning force. [5]
These are mostly used by direct pulling, rather than levering. A wooden or plastic block has a row of sharp raised point to grip the webbing by piercing it. The block is either held and pushed to tension the webbing, or a turned wooden handle on a gooseneck wire is used to pull it. [6] The other edge of the block is sometimes padded to avoiding marking the frame, but is not as effective a lever as the traditional grooved type. As this type of stretcher is usually used by pulling rather than levering, it tends to leave the webbing slacker than traditionally expected. The pins can also damage the webbing, if used to apply an adequate force. This type is commonly used for making cheap furniture, where rubber webs are stapled permanently into place. As rubber only requires a low tension, they are adequate for this.
A hammer is a tool, most often a hand tool, consisting of a weighted "head" fixed to a long handle that is swung to deliver an impact to a small area of an object. This can be, for example, to drive nails into wood, to shape metal, or to crush rock. Hammers are used for a wide range of driving, shaping, breaking and non-destructive striking applications. Traditional disciplines include carpentry, blacksmithing, warfare, and percussive musicianship.
In woodworking and construction, a nail is a small object made of metal which is used as a fastener, as a peg to hang something, or sometimes as a decoration. Generally, nails have a sharp point on one end and a flattened head on the other, but headless nails are available. Nails are made in a great variety of forms for specialized purposes. The most common is a wire nail. Other types of nails include pins, tacks, brads, spikes, and cleats.
A chisel is a tool with a characteristically shaped cutting edge of blade on its end, for carving or cutting a hard material such as wood, stone, or metal by hand, struck with a mallet, or mechanical power. The handle and blade of some types of chisel are made of metal or of wood with a sharp edge in it.
A saw is a tool consisting of a tough blade, wire, or chain with a hard toothed edge. It is used to cut through material, very often wood though sometimes metal or stone. The cut is made by placing the toothed edge against the material and moving it forcefully forth and less forcefully back or continuously forward. This force may be applied by hand, or powered by steam, water, electricity or other power source. An abrasive saw has a powered circular blade designed to cut through metal or ceramic.
Boat building is the design and construction of boats and their systems. This includes at a minimum a hull, with propulsion, mechanical, navigation, safety and other systems as a craft requires.
A lock is a mechanical or electronic fastening device that is released by a physical object, by supplying secret information, by a combination thereof, or it may only be able to be opened from one side, such as a door chain.
Pliers are a hand tool used to hold objects firmly, possibly developed from tongs used to handle hot metal in Bronze Age Europe. They are also useful for bending and compressing a wide range of materials. Generally, pliers consist of a pair of metal first-class levers joined at a fulcrum positioned closer to one end of the levers, creating short jaws on one side of the fulcrum, and longer handles on the other side. This arrangement creates a mechanical advantage, allowing the force of the hand's grip to be amplified and focused on an object with precision. The jaws can also be used to manipulate objects too small or unwieldy to be manipulated with the fingers.
Upholstery is the work of providing furniture, especially seats, with padding, springs, webbing, and fabric or leather covers. The word also refers to the materials used to upholster something.
A bottle opener is a device that enables the removal of metal bottle caps from glass bottles. More generally, it might be thought to include corkscrews used to remove cork or plastic stoppers from wine bottles.
Framing hammers, used for framing wooden houses, are heavy duty rip hammers with a straight claw. The hammer heads typically weigh from 20 to 32 ounces for steel heads, and 12 to 16 ounces for titanium heads. Heavy heads, longer handles and milled faces allow for driving large nails quickly into dimensional lumber.
Galoshes, also known as dickersons, gumshoes, rubbers, or overshoes, are a type of rubber boot that is slipped over shoes to keep them from getting muddy or wet. In the United States, the word galoshes may be used interchangeably with boot, especially a rubberized boot. In the United Kingdom, however, a galosh is an overshoe made of a weatherproof material to protect a more vulnerable shoe underneath and keep the foot warm and dry. Galoshes is also the word for shoes in the Azorean Portuguese language.
A curb chain, or curb strap, is a piece of horse tack required for proper use on any type of curb bit. It is a flat linked chain or flat strap that runs under the chin groove of the horse, between the bit shank's purchase arms. It has a buckle or hook attachment and English designs have a "fly link" in the middle to hold a lip strap. On English bridles the horse is bridled with the curb chain undone on one side, then connected once on the horse. On western bridles, the curb chain is kept buckled to both sides of the bit.
A curb bit is a type of bit used for riding horses that uses lever action. It includes the pelham bit and the Weymouth curb along with the traditional "curb bit" used mainly by Western riders.
A stretcher bar is used to construct a wooden stretcher used by artists to mount their canvases.
This glossary of woodworking lists a number of specialized terms and concepts used in woodworking, carpentry, and related disciplines.
Tie down hardware is used to turn webbing into a tie down strap. There are various categories of tie down strap hardware that allow for the creation of a virtually unlimited number of different types of tie down straps. These pieces of hardware fall into several categories including fasteners, end fittings, and buckles.
In engineering, a dog is a tool or part of a tool, such as a pawl, that prevents or imparts movement through physical engagement. It may hold another object in place by blocking it, clamping it, or otherwise obstructing its movement. Or it may couple various parts together so that they move in unison – the primary example of this being a flexible drive to mate two shafts in order to transmit torque. Some devices use dog clutches to lock together two spinning components. In a manual transmission, the dog clutches, or "dogs" lock the selected gear to the shaft it rotates on. Unless the dog is engaged, the gear will simply freewheel on the shaft.
A strainer bar is used to construct a wooden stretcher frame used by artists to mount their canvases. They are traditionally a wooden framework support on which an artist fastens a piece of canvas. They are also used for small-scale embroidery to provide steady tension, affixing the edges of the fabric with push-pins or a staple gun before beginning to sew, and then removing it from the frame when the work is complete. Strainer bar frames are usually in the shape of a rectangle, although shaped canvases are also possible.
A bridge is a device that supports the strings on a stringed musical instrument and transmits the vibration of those strings to another structural component of the instrument—typically a soundboard, such as the top of a guitar or violin—which transfers the sound to the surrounding air. Depending on the instrument, the bridge may be made of carved wood, metal or other materials. The bridge supports the strings and holds them over the body of the instrument under tension.
Integral Coach Factory (ICF) coaches are conventional passenger coaches used on the majority of main-line trains in India. The design of the coach was developed by Integral Coach Factory, Perambur, Chennai, India in collaboration with the Swiss Car & Elevator Manufacturing Co, Schlieren, Switzerland in the 1950s. The design is also called the Schlieren design based on the location of the Swiss company. The 1st ICF coach had been flagged by then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru on 2 October 1955. The last ICF coach was flagged off by senior technician Shri Bhaskar P. in the presence of Railway Board Chairman Ashwani Lohani on 19 January 2018. The Indian Railways intends to phase out ICF coaches and replace all of them with the newer LHB coaches and Train 18 or Train 20 coaches over a period of time, once the codal life of the existing ICF coaches end.