Removing Tacks from a leather dining chair

gd2knw | May 29, 2010 |

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As time goes on you may find that your leather dining chair can look a bit tattered and worn, then it's time for a little reupholstering to make it look like new again. The first step to doing this is to remove all the tacks that hold the leather to the chair this is a fairly straight forward process but one needs to take extra care not to damage any part of the chair while doing this. You may find that you can use pretty much common household tools for this job as it doesn't require a professional just common sense.

You will need a screw driver preferably a flat head, and a claw hammer to remove the tacks. First of all for convenience look for all the loose tacks as these will obviously be easier to remove,start from the top of the chair at the back and work your way down you will come across the odd stubborn tack that refuses to budge but with a little care you can remove the take without causing too much damage to the chair or upholstery. So taking the screw driver insert it underneath the upholstery until you reach the tack a good thing to note is that the flatter the head of the screw driver the easier it will fit underneath the tack. Once you have reached the tack you will need to apply a little pressure by tapping the end of the screw driver with the hammer at this stage make sure not to damage the wood if possible. Once you have the screw driver underneath the tack you can then begin by slowly and carefully leveraging the the tack out by pulling the screw driver towards you.

To be extra careful you could also place a thin piece of wood under the screw driver where it is inserted under the tack and slowly pull it outwards, obviously you will need room for this method but it is a more safer option. While pulling on the tacks use a wiggling motion to slowly loosen the tacks you will notice they will free themselves much easier. Slowly work your way down the chair removing each tack in a row until you can pull the tack away from the leather. Once you have removed enough of the tacks you should have enough of the leather to pull the rest of the tacks free,if you come across the odd stubborn tacks simply use the claw of the hammer and insert it under the leather and the tack and use leverage to pull the tack free,then simply use the same process to remove the remaining tacks and leather from the chair and there you go, you can create your own leather dining chair by using the wooden chair as your base.