Foam rubber is sold in flat sheets and in molded slabs. Both may contain cavities, or cores, which allow air to escape when the foam is compressed. Prefabricated molded foam is die basic material in modern furniture. You can replace worn or damaged foam cushions and scats. When replacing old foam, discuss your requirements with your supplier. Have the foam cut with an extra quarter inch all the way around the scat; loam should be slightly com-pressed by its cover. If you have to cut the foam yourself, you will be forced to deal with characteristics of the material that make cutting it L difficult. Foam tends to move around, bulge, or compress as it is cut. It also sticks to tools. Cut foam more than 2 inches thick with an electric carving Iodic or a bandsaw. If you have neither, use a sharp serrated carving knife, a single-edged razor blade, or well-sharpened scissors. Wet the cutting edge with water and work it back and forth along the line of the cut, penetrating no more than about an inch at a time. Slab foam can be glued directly to wood, metal, or another piece of foam, using rubber cement. Molded foam should be at-i ached using a combination of rubber cement and cloth strips€"or tacking tape, available From foam suppliers and at hardware stores. When mounting foam over springs, place cotton wadding over the burlap.

Stripping the upholstery a worn cover does not always mean that the upholstery should be stripped to the frame and replaced in its entirety. A well-made foundation on spring seats and overstuffed upholstery often outlast two of the five covers. You can repair sagging webbing simply by turning the chair upside down, removing the cambric dust cover, and stretching and tacking a new layer of webbing over the old. If a spring comes loose, you may be able to tie it back into place, stripping only the webbing and leaving the padding untouched. For major repairs, however, all the old upholstery may have to be removed. Position the furniture on a workbench or a pair of saw horses at a comfortable working height. Begin by re-moving the cambric dust cover and skirt from the underside of the frame. Remove any tacks that will interfere with your work; use a mallet and tack rip-per, or pliers, working along the grain to prevent splitting. Make a sketch of the chair or couch. As you strip each part of the cover, note the rails to which it was attached. Also make notes on how the cover was fitted around posts and corners, and where and how the various cover pieces were joined to one another. Your notes will be a reminder of the order in which you stripped the upholstery; you will reverse this order in recovering the furniture. Simple repairs to foam rubber scats are covered at left; full-scale reupholstering jobs, on the pages that follow.