Upholsterers
Upholsterers make, repair, or replace upholstery for household furniture or transportation vehicles.
Upholsterers' job description includes providing seats to furniture (beds, mattresses, chairs, sofas cushions and the seats of cars, buses and trains) with padding, springs, webbing, and fabric or leather covers. A person who works with upholstery is called an upholsterer; a trainee upholsterer is sometimes called an outsider or tailor.
Upholsterers' daily duties involve aligning parts or workpieces to ensure proper assembly, mounting materials or workpieces onto production equipment and then cutting fabrics. Further, they measure materials to mark reference points, cutting lines, or other indicators and assemble garments or textile products.
How to become an Upholsterer? There is no formal education level to become an upholsterer, but the role requires extensive training and job experience under the guidance of an experienced upholsterer.
Upholsterers mainly find jobs through recommendations of friends customers, colleagues or neighbours as freelance or employees of a showroom or fabric shop and earn a decent upholsterer salary.
For a candidate to be successful in an upholsterer's job, they have to be precise and multitask. They should be smart to use the best materials and manage the costs of the client. It is a satisfying and gratifying career option as one never gets bored with the job and gets to see a finished product daily and they are the main person who makes the upholstery businesses run.
Qualifications
Every career requires an element of study and academic qualification, and there can be several study routes and pathways you can take. In following any academic pathway you will study subjects that contribute to the specialised knowledge required to achieve your career goals. These qualifications provide a future employer with the evidence that you have the desired knowledge, understanding and experience of their industry, so it’s important to consider the various types of qualifications available to you and to understand how they can boost your career and create opportunities for you.
- NSQF Level 4 Fitter-Modular Furniture
Tasks
- Fit, install, and secure material on frames, using hand tools, power tools, glue, cement, or staples.
- Build furniture up with loose fiber stuffing, cotton, felt, or foam padding to form smooth, rounded surfaces.
- Examine furniture frames, upholstery, springs, and webbing to locate defects.
- Attach fasteners, grommets, buttons, buckles, ornamental trim, and other accessories to covers or frames, using hand tools.
- Remove covering, webbing, padding, or defective springs from workpieces, using hand tools such as hammers and tack pullers.
- Read work orders, and apply knowledge and experience with materials to determine types and amounts of materials required to cover workpieces.
- Draw cutting lines on material following patterns, templates, sketches, or blueprints, using chalk, pencils, paint, or other methods.
- Make, restore, or create custom upholstered furniture, using hand tools and knowledge of fabrics and upholstery methods.
- Measure and cut new covering materials, using patterns and measuring and cutting instruments, following sketches and design specifications.
- Maintain records of time required to perform each job.
Progression Routes
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