Random Sofa Surgery (Part 2).

Springing into action.

So ten of these showed up on the doorstep on Monday. Shame whoever the "other courier" was that the eBay seller used didn't bother to knock on the door or ring the bell, I found them when taking the rubbish out.

They were particularly well packaged though and required assault with a Stanley knife to liberate them from a cocoon of plastic film and Sellotape.

Inside along with the ten zig-zag springs were clips and nails for fixing them to the sofa frame. After work on Tuesday I once again upended the sofa and set to work.

First discovery was that the holes through which the nails were to go were a bit tight. Probably OK if you were building a sofa from scratch and had plenty of room to wallop them with a 1lb hammer but in the more confined space in which I had to work it was easier to drill them out slightly.

My plan was to fit a spring under each front-to-back elastic webbing strap under the sofa seat to support the ageing material and give more support to the seat cushions.

I had measured the distance between the frame timbers and made an estimate of the length of spring required, adding a bit for the spring to bow upwards and settling on 24".

Yeah, as you can see that was an overestimate and 23" or maybe even 22"would have done. 

Not a problem as there's plenty of space at the back for the excess to overhang and the clips will fit anywhere along the spring. I considered cutting the excess off but as it will never be seen didn't bother. Spring steel isn't the easiest thing to cut anyway.

Still, too long isn't a problem but too short certainly would have been.

It was also easier to open out the clips to 90 degrees in order to nail them to the frame and then hammer them back down around the spring. Less chance of flattening the clip with an inaccurate hammer-blow.

Once all the springs were clipped into place another nail is driven in through the top of the clip to prevent it opening out and releasing the spring.

I forgot to take a picture of that before re-stapling the bottom cover of the sofa into place.

Once the feet had been refitted I put the tools away, righted the sofa, and thoroughly tested it for the rest of the evening.

It's much more comfortable, doesn't look as knackered as it did before, and should last for a good while before I have to think about replacing it.

A job well done I reckon and puts off the day that I'll have to deal with slimy furniture salesmen 😉

The springs came from this eBay seller foamandupholsterywarehouse_1 who were quick, efficient and reasonably priced.