I plan to upholster antique wooden chairs with plywood seats. Please recommend a padding that will be about 1 inch thick and provide cushioning for the hard plywood bottoms. Also, please recommend where I can obtain the padding.

Thanks,
George
Fort Worth, TX

 

upholstery & fabric stores will have the foam & batting you need. i don't think cotton batting alone will stay spongy, like foam will. i believe the norm is to use the foam on bottom & top it with the batting, then cover with fabric.

 

It sounds like those chairs originally had springs. If you want to use plywood, I doubt you will get good results with only 1 inch padding. If you go that route, go to an upholstery supply and get the densest foam you can get, there is a big difference in foams, ask for a dining room seat foam. Put a thin layer of dacron or cotton over the foam, that gives it a nicer look. If they are nice chairs, cut a hole in the plywood big enough for a persons rear, that should leave you a border of wood of about 2 1/2 inches, buy rubberized webbing I think also called Perrelli webbing (this webbing is not cheap, but worth it). Weave the webbing and give it a medium stretch, maybe 4 strips in the width and 4 in the length. That will give you spring and make only an inch of padding work. If you can go thicker with the foam but you have to staple or glue down the edges so you don't have a sharp edge of foam, put a layer of dacron over the foam, it would give the chair a crown.