Wrapping Rail in Vinyl Help (3 Viewers)

[meller]

I could really use some suggestions. I am building a new oval 10 person table using some of the many posts I've seen here. I'm at the last stage and am wrapping the rail in vinyl and I'm really struggling. I wrapped the outside and thought it was as good as it was gonna get and hoped that doing the inside would make it tighter and wow was I wrong. It looks like trash. I removed the staples on the outside corners but no matter what I seem to have creases. Anyone have any types or tricks to wrapping the outer side of the rail to make it smooth. It just seems that I end up with a huge wod of vinyl in a section and I can't get it smooth. Couple of pics of my build.

 

[Colquhoun]

Never done this before, but I saw this video a while back. It's a folding table, but maybe the process is the same?

 

[Moxie Mike]

You're not using any padding on the rail?

I suggest you use a heat gun to warm the vinyl before stretching. It's a tedious process... stretch, staple, restretch, restaple... basically you want to pull the wrinkles to the underside of the rail and then staple.

One trick I learned is to start in the middle of the curve and staple it... then split the difference each way, then split that distance... basically you want to always be pulling in the middle. When you pull one side of the other, you end up with folds and excessive creases.

 

[foreverdev]

Are you using 4 way stretch vinyl?
I used the tutorial posted above and the rail vinyl phase was absolutely brutal. I’m convinced at some point the vinyl will rip. It’s slightly loose in some parts and extremely tight in others. I think we used the wrong material.

 

[Jers28]

One trick I learned is to start in the middle of the curve and staple it... then split the difference each way, then split that distance... basically you want to always be pulling in the middle. When you pull one side of the other, you end up with folds and excessive creases.

This, over and over and over. Until your sections are teensy. And a ton of relief cuts in the center. But, you are correct in doing the outside first and getting that sucker tight enough you can darn near beat it like a drum head before ever cutting the center. I'll swap devices so I can add some pics.

 

[Irish]

https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/re-upholstering-poker-table-rail.41438/post-769619

 

[Jers28]

Here I’ve got about 90% of the outside staples in, I’m just verifying I’m happy with the material that’s highest up in this particular photo, which is a problem spot for this shape. A solid oval is easier.

For this shape, I leave the ends for last, so after the outside, I cut out the center, do the relief cuts and start the process over as described by @Moxie Mike

Inside and outside are good, time for the hard part.

The ends are damn near impossible to get perfect without the right tools. So, I hide the problem areas where you won’t notice. The very tip of the end on the right of this photo, you can see a crease.

It’s now hidden mostly by the center piece for the dealer rail, but from this angle, you can still see it. I can live with one small area. If you don’t own an upholstery shop, it’s hard to be too upset by this.

Hope this helps!

 

[TheYeti]

I wrapped my rail once 20 years ago. Won't be doing that again.

If my rail ever needs re-wrapping, I'm buying new.

 

[meller]

Never done this before, but I saw this video a while back. It's a folding table, but maybe the process is the same?

This is one of the videos I watch which was super helpful.

I wrapped my rail once 20 years ago. Won't be doing that again.

If my rail ever needs re-wrapping, I'm buying new.

Yeah it's a beast, definitely the hardest part of the job.

Are you using 4 way stretch vinyl?
I used the tutorial posted above and the rail vinyl phase was absolutely brutal. I’m convinced at some point the vinyl will rip. It’s slightly loose in some parts and extremely tight in others. I think we used the wrong material.

I did not use 4 way stretch, didn't know that was a thing. it was brutal and I ended up using hundreds of staples and removing at least a hundred to try and fix things.

https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/re-upholstering-poker-table-rail.41438/post-769619

I searched the forum and didn't see this, but this is an excellent resource.

You're not using any padding on the rail?

I suggest you use a heat gun to warm the vinyl before stretching. It's a tedious process... stretch, staple, restretch, restaple... basically you want to pull the wrinkles to the underside of the rail and then staple.

One trick I learned is to start in the middle of the curve and staple it... then split the difference each way, then split that distance... basically you want to always be pulling in the middle. When you pull one side of the other, you end up with folds and excessive creases.

I do have 1 inch padding on the rail. I did not think of the heat gun but that's a good idea. I also like the idea to start at the middle of the curve. I think part of my problem was not pulling in the middle and pulling on the sides which contributed to my problems.

 

[meller]

I could really use some suggestions. I am building a new oval 10 person table using some of the many posts I've seen here. I'm at the last stage and am wrapping the rail in vinyl and I'm really struggling. I wrapped the outside and thought it was as good as it was gonna get and hoped that doing the inside would make it tighter and wow was I wrong. It looks like trash. I removed the staples on the outside corners but no matter what I seem to have creases. Anyone have any types or tricks to wrapping the outer side of the rail to make it smooth. It just seems that I end up with a huge wod of vinyl in a section and I can't get it smooth. Couple of pics of my build.

I finally got it to an acceptable level for my liking. I went back and removed all the staples on the curved sections and re did it. I ended up removing stables many times and redoing. In these sections I ended up going overboard on staples when I was done. On the top there are no creases on the bottom of the curves you can see some creases but they're not overly visible. I also decided to redo my barrington table and ended up having to redo one section of rail. It's not as perfect as I'd like because I had a hard time matches the foam and didn't know what kind of vinyl they used so it's the same vinyl as my new table. The purple table is the Barrington table. I think overall that table turned out to be more of an issue since I was working with what I had available vs building from scratch. I think I ended up using more than 1000 staples but I also removed likely over 100 and redid them while doing the vinyl. My fingers still hurt from doing this.

 

[xdan]

heat gun.. stretch and cut... constantly remove staples if needed to get rid of the clumps