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Felt provides an easy but attractive way to spice up the appearance of your wooden workpieces, and it is a popular material for lining boxes. However, gluing felt to wood can be a pretty challenging and messy task if you do not know what you are doing.
When gluing felt to the wood, you need to ensure you have the suitable materials and understand how to do it correctly to ensure you get the desired results. Here we list everything you need and also explain the main steps to follow.
In this post:
Things You Will Need
- Felt
- Wooden workpiece
- Contact cement
- Felt brushes
- Roller
- Rotary tool or Scissors
Step-by-step Guide
1. Gather Tools and Materials
While this step might sound obvious, it is still as vital as the others that will follow. If you do not have the right tools and equipment, the job becomes hectic for you, even if you know exactly how to glue felt to wood.
Make sure you have tools for cutting and trimming off the felt and what you need to apply the glue, such as brush and rollers. If there is anything that needs cleaning, such as the brushes, you should do it at this step.
2. Measure and Cut Felt
Once you gather everything you need, the next step is to measure and then cut your felt. The exact size you need depends on what you are covering but in most instances is always better to have some extra felt than go shorter than you want, as you can easily trim off the excess afterward.
Additionally, when cutting your felt, avoid a freehand cutting as this almost always ruins the material for you. Instead, you should make a paper template and place it over the material to ensure neat and accurate cuts. Also, a rotary tool makes better cuts than using scissors.
3. Apply thin Glue Coat on Felt and Wood
With the felt pieces cut to size, you should now apply a thin coat of glue to the fabric. A soft felt brush with fine bristles is the best way to ensure you apply the adhesive as finely as possible while keeping the coat thin.
Once the felt is covered, you also need to apply the glue or contact cement to the wood. Ensure the coat that goes onto the wood is as thin as possible and spread it evenly on the surface to ensure good adhesion and a good finish.
4. Place Felt On the Wood
The next step is to place the cloth on the wood. Here you need to be extra careful to ensure the material goes to the exact spot you want.
Check that all the edges at the right spot before pushing the material onto the wood. Doing this ensures you will not have to keep moving the felt around once it contacts the wood, as this can affect how it adheres to the surface.
When the felt is in place, it is good to add some extra pressure to be sure the two surfaces will connect nicely. A roller brush can be handy here because, besides providing extra pressure, it helps spread the glue evenly to minimize bleeding and formation of lumps.
5. Give the Felt Adequate Time to Dry
You have to give the piece enough time to dry before doing anything else. In most instances, this means leaving it for at least 10 minutes. Once dry, you can then cut off any extra felt material, and when that is done, the job is complete.
Conclusion
Whether you want a lining for your jewelry box or to give a wooden piece an exquisite finish, gluing some felt onto it is a great idea. However, you need to it properly for a more aesthetic finish.
The best way to do this is to ensure you have all the materials and tools you need, from the felt material to other things like contact cement/glue and cutting equipment. Once that is done, you only need to follow the simple steps above, and you will be done in almost no time.