[Benchai]

Thought as I repair KT's seats I'd post up the process for general interest. We start with a rather poor attempt at border wire repair by Farmer Joe.

Cover comes off, so does the bailing twine and aluminium tube.

New border wire is bent up to replace the missing bit, or to bridge the break if it's only broken

New wire is attached with W clips

Foam is cut back to prepare for new material

New foam is built up ready for rough shaping

Cut to shape with foam knife

Final smoothing with coarse sanding disc on angle grinder

And finally a layer pulled over the surface and it's good as new.

Next is post cutting and sewing the cover

[Fatzook]

Awesome!!

Get on with it

[31zook]

wicked! im keen to get my stock seats re covered and a bit more sideways support, any idea on price?

[PJ.zook]

Never seen this done before, should be interesting.

[Fatzook]

PJ.zook wrote:

Never seen this done before, should be interesting.

Check out the 'American Hotrod' series. They have plenty of upholstery work going on. Very cool to watch it take shape

[DMAC]

Ok I've had intermission ready for part 2.

[Benchai]

So now we are up to the marking and cutting. In this case, I have decided to make an individual design, rather than customising the shape. After all, how much can you improve on entry level 1981 commercial vehicle comfort? Anyway, when the cover is as stuffed as this one, you have to rely on symmetry, and mark out what is there, and copy over what is not.


Once the pattern is made, I can sketch the design so I know how to cut the individual pieces. Usually you would simply mark your stitch lines and foam up ready to stitch.

Once the material arrives, I'll cut panels and send off for embroidery.

[Benchai]

Meantime, let's talk door trims. Same as seats, the existing cover is marked and cut for design. As per seats, once materials arrive I'll cut and send off for embroidery. While I'm waiting I'll start on cutting the new boards. Shall keep you posted

[Fatzook]

This facinates me!!

Subscribed!

[31zook]

yeah, i haven't opened to see if there was a new post on any thread in ages...

definitely subscribed

[Verm1n]

Benchai
nice job looking good.. cant wait for the outcome:) I done my seats earlier this year, where do u send it off to get embroided if i may ask??

[Benchai]

Verm1n wrote:

Benchai
nice job looking good.. cant wait for the outcome:) I done my seats earlier this year, where do u send it off to get embroided if i may ask??

Thanks mate, thanks everyone for the compliments and encouragement. All makes for a much more satisfying job. I get my mother in law to do my embroidery - she bought an industrial single head unit in the hope of turning it into a business. It was such a good idea the people she bought it through bought their own effectively denying Wendy the business. I send as much her way as I can as the machine cost over $10k. I'm waiting for material atm. Should be in at the warehouse today or tomorrow, which means I won't get anywhere except cutting door trim boards

[Verm1n]

thanks mate.. pm sent

[4wheeljive]

Mad cant wait for the next episode

[96coily]

This is not good
usually by the time I read one of these the jobs complete and I don't have to wait.............
still waiting...........
Oh crap I'm hocked

[droopypete]

My car spends a lot of time in the weather with the roof off and I was always getting a wet arse even after drying the (vinyl) seats, the problem was water getting into the foam through the stitches and taking days to dry out, when I had them reupholstered we roughly covered the foam with lightweight PVC before installing the cover so when the water passes through the stitches it can't get to the foam and just runs out the bottom.
This works a treat and now when my arse is wet, it is not from the water in the seats
Peter.

[Benchai]

Still waiting on material. Don't do waiting too well. Here are the door trim boards. I use melamine backed mdf, 3.2mm. I have also changed from the original clips which will fit on the new board, but are a little tight. I have changed to metal holden/ford style, and also changed the snap sac in the door, mainly because these are cheaper and more accessible.

Hopefully we'll get some cloth today

[Benchai]

Still no cloth!!!
I'm doing something on this design I've never done before, which I'll go into more once things start going back together. To help this to work I've decided to cut some card templates for the insert fabrics to keep things accurate, particularly with the embroidery, but also with the double stitching there will be some shrinkage so I'll rough cut then use the template to cut more accurate pieces. I've also redrawn the pattern from the original draft.

Hopefully the next pics will be of material cut out

[Fatzook]

Benchai wrote:

Hopefully the next pics will be of material cut out

Hopefully its soon.

[Benchai]

I have material, yea!!
Rough cut, one is foam backed, the other not, so now to glue some foam on the back then off to embroidery. Should have them back tonight, then cut and sew tomorrow

[Benchai]

Material is back from embroidery. Insert back is marked out ready for stitching. 9mm thick foam is glued before stitching to give the stitching some depth.

Base insert is stitched and then cut against template. It's now ready to join to the rest of the panels, once I work out how I'm going to do it.

[atari4x4]

[Joe]

[PJ.zook]

Whats the difference between embroidery and stitching?

[Benchai]

I'm glad that's done. I was wanting a flash of orange, but not just a piping strip as is done to death already, and I also wanted a variation in thickness. Anyway, after nearly doing my head in, the inserts are finished. Tomorrow I'll cut the borders and sew them all together. Friday I'll sew the door trims, and Saturday morning I'll put it all together and in the car.

[Benchai]

PJ.zook wrote:

Whats the difference between embroidery and stitching?

Embroidery is the logo in the centre of the backrest, the stitching is the almost straight orange lines.

[Fatzook]

What format does the image need to be in for the emroidery machine?

[Benchai]

Fatzook wrote:

What format does the image need to be in for the emroidery machine?

The program takes a jpeg and converts it into it's own format, which takes some skill to make look good. If it's just text, it works better to simply type it in and let the program do it's thing. I did a custom job on a PT Cruiser with an image of a wolf howling at the moon. I didn't realise at the time how hard it would have been to get the result he did. It's handy having Wendy mother in law to do these things for me, but with a tricky job I think I need to send her much more custom jobs to get her hand in. Perhaps it's a specialty I should look at getting into

[Fatzook]

Benchai wrote:

Fatzook wrote:

What format does the image need to be in for the emroidery machine?

The program takes a jpeg and converts it into it's own format, which takes some skill to make look good. If it's just text, it works better to simply type it in and let the program do it's thing. I did a custom job on a PT Cruiser with an image of a wolf howling at the moon. I didn't realise at the time how hard it would have been to get the result he did. It's handy having Wendy mother in law to do these things for me, but with a tricky job I think I need to send her much more custom jobs to get her hand in. Perhaps it's a specialty I should look at getting into

Too hard?

[Benchai]

Should be quite easy. I'll get her to do a sample