The wing-back is the major project of this book. It brings together every technique in Part Two on a single piece: full traditional springing, stitched-edge first-stuffing, complex inside-arm and wing geometry, careful pattern-matched cover work. A complete restoration takes us between 50 and 70 hours of workshop time and around £200–500 of materials. Customers are charged £1,200–2,500 for the labour, plus fabric. It is the project that pays the workshop’s bills, that we look forward to most, and that we charge a premium for justifiably.
This chapter walks through a complete wing-back restoration end-to-end, from the customer’s first phone call to the delivery van. It is the longest chapter in Part Three because the chair is the most complex; we have given it the room it deserves. Most of the techniques have been covered in Part Two; we’ll refer back rather than re-explain.
If you’ve worked through Chapters 7–17 carefully, you have all the technical background you need to follow this chapter. If you haven’t, this chapter will read as an overview rather than a manual; refer back as needed.
Don’t take a wing-back as your first major project. Do five drop-ins and three stuffovers first; do at least one stool with deep buttoning; only then commit to a wing-back. We’ve seen apprentices try to start here; the chair takes two months and the result is rarely satisfying.
Wing-back anatomy
Wing-backs come in two main forms: the Georgian (c.1720–1810), with sloping wings and a low seat; and the Victorian (c.1850 onwards), with more vertical wings and a higher seat. Both share the same fundamental geometry: a tall back, two arms with vertical ‘wings’ rising from the arm-back junction up to almost the height of the cresting, and a deep seat with a stitched front edge. The wings provided draught protection in the unheated rooms of pre-central-heating houses; they remained on the chair as a design element long after the original purpose disappeared.
There are dozens of named wing-back variants — the Knole, the Howard, the Victoria & Albert — each with characteristic dimensions and trim. We’ll cover the general technique here; the variants are listed in Part Five (Reference) with notes on what’s distinctive about each.
Materials and time
Materials per wing-back (full traditional restoration)
- 30 m of 50 mm jute webbing (paid link) (about £30)
- 9 coil springs at 8.5″ × 9-gauge (paid link) (£36) plus 6 lighter back springs (£18)
- 5 m of laid hemp lashing cord (paid link) (£15)
- 3 m² of hessian (paid link) + 2 m² of scrim (paid link) (£25)
- 4 kg of horsehair (paid link) (mix of new and salvaged: £120–200)
- 5 m² of cotton felt (paid link) (£15)
- 4 m² of calico (paid link) (£20)
- 6–8 m of show fabric (£160–1000+) — work it with the fabric calculator
- 12 m of gimp braid (paid link) (£24)
- Bottoming cloth (paid link), twine, tacks, staples, fabric glue (£30)
Total materials cost: £490–1,400 depending almost entirely on fabric choice.
Time estimate for the full restoration
| Strip and inspect | 4 hours |
| Frame repair if needed | 4–8 hours |
| Webbing | 4 hours |
| Springing | 8–12 hours |
| First stuffing and stitched edges | 16–20 hours |
| Second stuffing and calico | 6 hours |
| Top cover | 8–12 hours |
| Trims and finishing | 4 hours |
| Total | 54–72 hours |
Allow a fortnight for a single wing-back if it’s the only thing on the bench; longer if other jobs are running in parallel.
We charge £25/hour for restoration work, so a wing-back labour quote runs £1,350–1,800 with a price ceiling at £2,000 for fixed-price jobs. Plus materials and fabric. Customer expectation needs setting at the quote stage; many are surprised at the cost. (Full method in pricing & quoting.)
The cost & time estimator works through piece, condition and construction to a labour-hours range — a sanity check for exactly this kind of big-budget quote.
The full build sequence
Stage 1 Strip and inspect (4 hours)
Working through the chair in the order from stripping the old work. Top fabric off first (save the best pieces for cutting templates); calico off; second stuffing and felt off; scrim and stitched-edge first stuffing off; hessian off; springs and lashing off; webbing off. By the end the chair is a bare frame, and you know what you’re working with.
Wing-back inspection points: the eight joints of the main frame (back stiles to seat rails, arm rails to back stiles, arm rails to front legs); the wing structure (often a curved laminated piece, fragile); the cresting (often carved show-wood, expensive to repair); the front rail (heaviest tack damage usually). Photograph anything questionable; quote frame repair before committing to upholstery.
Save the original horsehair, every label, every brass castor, the original scrim if intact (use as a template for new). Bin the cover fabric, the felt and wadding, the hessian. The horsehair is the most valuable thing the customer doesn’t know they have.
Stage 2 Frame repair if needed (variable)
Quote any frame work separately and get the customer’s sign-off before starting. Common wing-back frame issues: loose joints between back stiles and seat rails (re-glue with hide glue, see frame repair); split arm rails (splice in new section, joinery work); wing structure cracked or snapped (often the laminated wing piece needs full replacement, joinery work).
Don’t skip this step. A loose frame is what destroys the upholstery you’re about to build; the chair flexes at every sit and the new stitches break. Better to spend half a day fixing the frame than to redo the upholstery in two years.
Major frame work goes to our cabinet-maker; we don’t attempt it ourselves. The cabinet-maker turns wing-back frame repairs around in 2–3 weeks and charges £200–500 depending on the work. Quote separately to the customer.
Stages 3–4 Webbing and springing (12–16 hours)
Webbing and springing are exactly as webbing and traditional springing. The wing-back’s seat takes 9 springs in a 3 × 3 grid; the back takes 6 lighter springs in a 2 × 3 grid. The webbing layout matches the spring pattern (one webbing strand per row of springs, plus one more for support). 8-knot lashing on both seat and back; bridle ties everywhere.
The arms of a wing-back are usually not sprung — just stuffed over a hessian-covered timber frame. This makes the arms simpler to upholster than the seat or back, but they still need careful first stuffing and stitched edges to maintain shape over decades.
Some wing-backs (particularly Howard pieces) have spring-up backs — the back is constructed with coil springs just like the seat. Others have only the stuffing, no springs. Check what was there originally and reproduce it; don’t add springs that weren’t there.
Stage 5 First stuffing and stitched edges (16–20 hours)
The wing-back has three stitched-edge pads to build: the seat, the inside back, and each inside arm (plus the wings, which are typically smaller pads without stitched edges). All five pads need bridling, stuffing, scrim cover, blind stitch, top stitch — the full stitched-edge technique.
The seat pad is the largest and follows the standard build. Use about 2 kg of horsehair for the first stuffing, packed firmly to give a 20 mm proud rim along the front edge before stitching. Three rows of blind stitch + one row of top stitch.
The inside back follows the same technique on a larger vertical surface. Use about 1.5 kg of horsehair; the back’s stitched edges are along the top (cresting) and the two sides (where the back meets the wings). More awkward to stitch because you’re working vertically rather than down onto a flat seat; allow the extra time.
The inside arms each need about 0.6 kg of horsehair and a stitched edge along the inside-facing side (where the arm meets the seat) and along the top (where the wing rises). The arm scroll — the curved front of each arm — needs particular care to keep the curve consistent with the chair’s design.
This is where the bulk of the labour lives. Stitched-edge work on a wing-back is roughly 40% of the total project hours. Don’t rush it; the work shows in the chair’s lifetime more than any other stage.
Build the pads in this order: seat first, then inside arms, then inside back, then wings. The seat sets the proportions; the arms and back fit to the seat; the wings fit to the arms and back.
Stages 6–7 Calico and top cover (14–18 hours)
Once all the first-stuffing pads are formed, the second stuffing goes on (see stuffing & stitched edges) and then calico (see calico, wadding & top cover). For a wing-back, the calico is fitted as separate panels for each major surface — seat, inside back, two inside arms, two wings. Total of six calico panels.
Each calico panel is fitted, marked, and used as the pattern for the matching top-fabric panel. The top cover is then fitted in the standard order: inside back lining, inside arms, inside back, seat, wings, outside arms, outside back. Eight panels total on a wing-back, sometimes more for very ornate designs.
The wings deserve particular attention. The cover wraps the wing on three sides (front, back, top) and tacks off underneath at the inside-arm/wing junction. Pleat the cover at the outside corner of each wing; tack the underside; cover the join with gimp (see trimming & finishing).
On a wing-back with velvet, plan the pile direction carefully: pile downward on inside back and seat front; pile front-to-back on seat top; pile downward on outside back. Mark every panel as you cut.
Tools for the job
- Magnetic tack hammer (paid link)
- Webbing strainer (stretcher) (paid link)
- Double-pointed stitching needles (paid link)
- Curved spring needle (paid link)
- Regulator (paid link)
- Ripping chisel (paid link)
The full kit is covered in the toolkit. Links above are affiliate links — they cost you nothing extra and help keep the site free.
From the workshop
The Howard chair we worked on for a month
A customer brought us an 1880s Howard & Sons wing-back in early 2017. Original springing intact, stitched edges still good after 130 years, frame solid, but the cover fabric was in fragments and the cresting had a major split that needed cabinet-maker work first.
We sent the frame out for repair (3 weeks; £400). When it came back we did a full traditional restoration retaining the original springs and most of the horsehair, with new first-stuffing only where the existing was compressed beyond recovery. The customer chose a wool-mohair fabric at £180/m; total fabric was £1,440. Labour was 64 hours across four weeks; we charged £1,600. Total bill £3,440. The customer was delighted; the chair was photographed for an interiors magazine; we got two more wing-back commissions off the back of it. (For the other side of that coin, read the wing-back that wasn’t a Howard.)
Did you know
Why wing-backs survive when other Victorian chairs don’t
Wing-backs from the Victorian period are over-represented in surviving Victorian furniture today. The reason is structural: the wing-back’s deep seat and tall back put the centre of gravity low and the chair is exceptionally stable. It rarely tips, rarely gets damaged in moves, and it sits comfortably enough that owners keep it in the drawing room rather than relegating it to a spare bedroom.
Other Victorian forms — the prie-dieu, the ‘ladies’ chair’, the smoking chair — have higher centres of gravity and were always more fragile. They survive in much smaller numbers. The wing-back’s longevity is partly the technique we cover in this chapter; partly its underlying physics.
Common mistakes
Wing-back errors that catch beginners (and us) out
- Skipping the frame inspection — a loose-jointed wing-back will destroy your new upholstery. Inspect; repair; only then upholster.
- Wrong first stuffing volume — 2 kg in the seat, 1.5 kg in the back, 0.6 kg in each arm. Less and the chair feels under-built; more and the cover won’t fit.
- Stitching the back vertically — the inside back needs stitching while the chair lies on its back, not while it stands up. Working vertically you can’t get the stitches consistent. Tip the chair down.
- Mis-matching the wing to the arm — the wing rises from the inside-arm/back junction at a specific angle that’s part of the chair’s character. Reproduce the original angle; don’t ‘improve’ the design.
- Quoting too low — wing-backs are big-budget jobs. Customer expectation needs setting at the quote stage; if they baulk at £1,500 labour, the project isn’t for them — refer them to a foam-and-staple shop instead.
Wing-back restored, 60 hours of labour, customer delighted. The next project chapter is the wing-back’s larger sibling — the Chesterfield sofa — which adds deep buttoning across the inside back and arms, plus 22 pages of leather to handle.