Random Sofa Surgery (Part 1)

Not sitting comfortably.

My sofa has been sagging for a while now. Mostly caused by some fat bastard lounging on one end of it making it sag unevenly as well. Apart from the sagging however it's in quite good nick, being good quality leather and I've not been able to find a suitable replacement that I like.

Reduce, Recycle, Re-use, Repair.

So rather than chuck it and fork out a small fortune for a new one I'm doing my bit for the planet and repairing it. I've made some temporary repairs in the past when some of the elasticated webbing straps failed - caused by rubbing on part of the internal frame - but now the seat and back cushions really need extra stuffing. Also a more permanent solution to the "suspension failure" caused by the failed webbing.

Getting the bottom up.

Fig. 1 Sofa in working position.

On this sofa the seat cushions can't be removed so any repairs have to be done from below. So the first thing to do is turn the sofa upside down. The last thing you want to do is crawl around on hands and knees for the next couple of hours so prop the sofa up under the arms to get things to a more convenient working height. (fig.1)

Next unscrew and remove the 4 feet. Now you can remove the bottom cloth which covers the innards of the sofa. This means prying out the staples using a bradawl or suitable screwdriver (the bradawl is more comfortable as the handle is designed for dusking on) and a pair of fine-nosed pliers. There are a lot of staples. A LOT. At least you can get away with only undoing the 2 short and one long sides and folding the cloth back. You can now see the underside of the seat and in my case the temporary bodge repair on the failed webbing straps. 

Underneath the seat.

Bodge it.

This was done by fixing the broken ends to 2 wooden battens, Tensioning the straps by pulling the battens closer together using plastic cable ties (zippy ties), and then using sash cord to hold the battens in position. A piece of foam rubber is placed between the sash cords and the part of the frame that rubbed through the webbing to protect the cords from meeting the same fate. It's not pretty but then it's not usually visible and in 6 months or more it hasn't broken.

Unfortunately its not possible to get to the ends of the webbing straps to replace them as they're fixed to the upper side of the frame. I plan to reinforce the structure by adding steel zig-zag springs instead. That will be covered in part 2.
Meanwhile, in order to re-stuff the seat cushions I needed to get access below (or above if you prefer) the webbing straps to insert more padding between the strapping and the foam rubber cushions, thus pushing them back up against the leather covering above so that the seats regained some at least of their original shape. To do this required the removal of more staples to release the brown cloth at the back of the seat cushions and bottom of the seat back cushions (on the left in fig.2). Out with the bradawl and pliers again.

Fig.3 Space to stuff cushions.

Stuff it.

With the cloth folded back there is enough space at the rear of the cushion to push down the foam rubber and introduce extra stuffing (fig.3). In keeping with the environmentally friendly ethos of this repair the extra stuffing I used was recycled bed pillows containing hollow fibre wadding. These were almost exactly the right size for two of them to fit in the space available and just the right thickness to boost the foam cushions.

While working on the seat cushions I noticed that the lumbar support part of the seat backs had a zip on the back so I added some extra hollow fibre padding in there as well.

Once the re-stuffing was done I re-stapled the brown cloth to the seat frame using staples with 8mm long legs, similar to those that came out. Checking underneath I could see that the seat cushions were now a much better shape. They are not quite equal because as mentioned previously one end of the sofa had suffered greater wear than the other but they are near enough for jazz.

Pad it.

Fig.4 protective foam padding

Now that the seat cushions were re-stuffed I needed to provide some padding and protection to the centre part of the frame, both to protect the webbing and cords from abrasion and to protect the posterior of sitters from the hard edge of the frame. It's a 2 seater really but occasionally has to cope with 3. Fortunately I had a piece of seating grade foam left over from making a dog bed which was exactly the right size and wedged into the space between frame and seat perfectly, folded double at the point where the most load is applied to the sofa.

A quick going over with the vacuum cleaner removed much of the accumulated detritus from the interior of the sofa - how did the lid of a Pringles tube get in there? As I still have more work to do I haven't re-stapled the bottom cloth back in place.

I temporarily screwed the feet back in place and turned the sofa the right way up.

Sit on it.

Fig.5 Re-stuffed sofa.

Well it looks much better than it did. It's noticeably less saggy at the end on the right in fig.5 and is more comfortable to sit on, which is where I'm writing this blog from. There's no way to get into the armrests to add stuffing alas but they're not too bad and I have scatter cushions on them usually.

Next step is to fit the steel zig-zag springs which I've now ordered from a well-known internet auction site and will add some strength to the structure. It won't be "as new" but for an outlay of somewhat less than £20 it should extend its life considerably. I'll cover the fitting of the springs in part 2 when they arrive.

Trip to Birmingham - Classic Motor Show at the NEC

9th & 10th November 2018

I let the train take the strain - and just for once the train wasn't a strain - to go to the Lancaster Insurance Classic Motor Show as I didn't fancy a very early start and then a late drive back.

 An overnight stay in Birmingham meant just a short ride to Birmingham International station for the NEC but also a chance to have a few in the excellent Waterloo pub on Bennett's Hill the evening before 😀

The Waterloo is a really good pub with a huge range of real ales and the only thing on the telly is the list of available brews. So just the place to shelter from the rather horrid wet weather outside.

Birmingham was, despite the rain, rather lively and the largely under-dressed party animals trotting between the nightclubs outside the hotel kept going until the early hours - you've got to admire their stamina.

So, to the show itself. It was huge. I've not been to the NEC for a couple of decades at least. It's quite easy to lose your bearings within its cavernous halls. Even after six hours looking around I still think I may have missed bits! Here's a few pictures of my personal highlights:

Daimler SP250 Dart, I actually like the way this car looks but I may be in a minority. One of the most underrated British sports cars I think.

Jaguar XK120. The best looking of the XKs (apart from the E-type).

Hubnut's Invacar, Twc (pronounced 'Took' because it lives in Wales). I've been following developments on this on the Hubnut Youtube Channel

A fine pair of Bristols. Yeah, I know 😇

A grey Austin A35. I have a soft spot for these, first car I ever worked on 😀

As evidenced by this picture from 1965. Keep your work area tidy?

Riley One-Point-Five. I quite fancied one of these when I was about 18. Allegedly the fastest thing you could get for the £815 or so it cost when it first went on sale.

Austin 101 van, the Austin-badged version of the Morris Commercial J-Type. Reckon you could make an interesting camper van out of on of those.

Talking of which this Standard Atlas with its tiny engine isn't one you'd want to be stuck behind in the Scottish Highlands but is very nicely turned out.

Bond Bug. Who doesn't like orange?

Ford Prefect 100E. My Dad had one of those.

He also had a BSA Bantam the same colour as this, until some git stole it from the car park at work.

There are some more photos in this Flickr Album

Eventually it was time to take aching feet back to Birmingham city centre for something to eat (cheaper than the captive audience prices at the venue) and a remarkably uneventful journey home by train from Birmingham New Street.

Donnington Castle

20th October 2018

Donnington Castle (the one with three Ns not the one with two) lies a short distance to the North of Newbury, Berkshire. This ruined medieval castle of which only the gatehouse still stands is in the care of English Heritage. A bright, sunny Saturday afternoon in October provided an excellent opportunity for my visit to explore and take some photos.

Entry is free as is the small car park at the end of a private lane just below the castle mound. It seems to be a popular spot for strolling, picnicking, or just enjoying the sunshine and the car park was about half full. Walk up the gravelled path to the castle between the Civil War earthworks to get close to the castle itself. There's no access inside but you can get all around the outside.

Donnington Castle was founded by Sir Richard Abberbury the Elder in 1386 and was bought by Thomas Chaucer then taken under royal control during the Tudor period. The castle was held by the royalist Sir John Boys during the First English Civil War and withstood an 18-month siege After the garrison eventually surrendered, Parliament voted to demolish the castle in 1646.

I bet the view from up there is good.

The castle gates, alas closed to the plebs.

Inner gates.

Unless you're taking a picnic, which I wasn't, you won't spend a huge amount of time at Donnington Castle but it does make a good starting point for a country ramble. There are good views from the castle and its surroundings.

Worth a trip for a quick explore.

Aldwych Station

13th October 2018

Hidden London Tour of Aldwych Tube Station

Aldwych station is at the end of a short branch line from Holborn on the Piccadilly Line. There has been no service on this branch since 30th September 1994 but it would be inaccurate to describe it as a disused station. It is still connected to the network and used for training emergency workers and as a film and TV location. The sign outside refers to it as a "non-operational station" which seems like a better description.

Public access is only usually available on one of the Hidden London tours run by the London Transport Museum.

The station opened in 1907 as Strand Station and was renamed in 1915 to Aldwych. At the same time nearby Charing Cross Strand station became just Strand.

The station was never heavily used and money was therefore always in short supply. In fact many parts of the station were never completed as the expenditure could not be justified. At the time of its closure in 1994 the branch was only being used by about 450 passengers a day.

It has however proved useful for other functions. In both world wars it was used as an air raid shelter and for storage of valuable national artworks. It was also useful for building mock-ups of proposed station designs, for staff training, and as a filming location - V for Vendetta, 28 Days Later, Sherlock, and Superman 4 amongst others.

For the tour we met up in outside the Surrey Street entrance and once the formalities were completed and we had our fetching pink wristbands (not hi-vis jerkins on this tour) we entered via the Strand entrance into the ticket hall.

The hall has original tiling though a more plain "economy" version of that found in other contemporary Leslie Green stations - economy being a recurring theme at Aldwych as it was realised from the outset that it would not be a busy station.

Down the spiral staircase 160 steps from ground to platform level (the equivalent of a 15 storey building) as the lifts are no longer working, again the original tiling still exists.

The eastern platform which wasn't normally used for trains has some of the original 1907 track, a lot of film set props, some station mock-up designs, and some interesting old posters.

Including this ironically topical one:

Good to see someone has been upgrading the cabling to meet 2015 fire regs:

On the western platform there is a train used for training and filming purposes (and on the tour for an audio presentation about the station as an air raid shelter in WW2). 

Dark in here, isn't it?

Tube aficionados will note that this 1972 stock train would never actually been used on the Aldwych branch and in fact this one hails from the Northern Line according to the line diagrams inside the cars.

The tunnel entrance to the rest of the Underground network. Note the partial decoration, another economy measure as the original trains were only two cars long only half the platform length was fully finished, later trains being three cars some extra basic decoration was added.

This way to Holborn...

The lift cars. Three double-car shafts were built but only one was actually equipped with two cars. Also the entrance passages to the cars were never finished and passengers entered and exited via the exit passages - another money-saving measure.

The lift controls. In 1922 the ticket office was shut and ticket booths built into the lift cars so the lift operator could issue and collect tickets as well, reducing the number of station staff required.

End of the tour. This old sign shows that Aldwych was considered an interchange with Temple station a short walk away on the District Line though not shown as such on tube maps. Temple is about the nearest station to use if you're going on an Aldwych tour being at the other end of Surrey St.

The Surrey Street station building. The odd spacing of the "PICCADILLY RLY' lettering is because it originally said Piccadilly Tube but the Underground Electric Railways Ltd. who opened the line (as the Great Northern, Brompton and Piccadilly Railway) didn't like the use of the term tube so it was changed.

As always this Hidden London tour was well run, informative, and enjoyable. You need to get in quick as spaces are limited and tickets not cheap but you get to see parts of London that most people never see and it's worth doing. If you are an LTM Friend you get advance notice of tour dates and early access to the booking system.

Flickr album with more photos here.

Berkhamsted Castle

7th October 2018

Berkhamsted Castle is a Norman motte-and-bailey castle in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire. Now a ruin in the care of English Heritage. Entry is free of charge.

The castle was built to obtain control of a key route between London and the Midlands during the Norman conquest of England in the 11th century. 

Robert of Mortain, William the Conqueror's half brother, was probably responsible for managing its construction, after which he became the castle's owner.  Subsequent kings granted the castle to their chancellors including later one Thomas Becket, now more usually associated with Canterbury.

The castle was substantially expanded in the mid-12th century, probably by Becket, who later came to a sticky end having misunderstood the relationship between the crown and the church.

The castle is conveniently located next to the railway station if you wanted to visit using public transport. Had the railway taken it's original planned route it would in fact have run straight through the castle site but the Act of Parliament of 1833 sanctioning the building of the London to Birmingham Railway specifically protected the castle making it the first building in the to receive statutory protection from development in this way.

Anyway, it's a nice place to wander about in the autumn sunshine with a camera and despite its urban location fairly peaceful, passing trains and noisy kids notwithstanding.