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[53Skylark]

The door panels on the '53 Skylark restoration are coming along nicely. Lots of 1" spaced pleat stitching. Kind of monotonous. I think I'll start a post showing the progression on the car as I move along, if I get past the seats....

I took the driver's seat back cover off to make patterns out of and encountered something I have not seen in John's instructional videos or any other videos I have found on-line. I'll try to describe how they are assembled and post some pics to help. The backrest insert is red pleated leather. The backrest collars are white leather. They are separated and attached by red piping; so far nothing unusual. When I took them apart, I discovered that the piping stitch allowance is sewn onto a piece of material folded in half around a piece of wire. This piece of material-wrapped wire is hog-ringed into a slit that is cut in the foam in the shape of the backrest insert.

So, my question is, assuming the entire cover had to be stitched together before being put on the foam cushion, how the hell did they get underneath it, behind it, and inside of it to hog-ring the piping in place?? And is it necessary for me to do the same on this assembly? I'm assuming the purpose is two-fold - to keep the insert from shifting and to give it a more puffed-out appearance.

The pics show the original assembled seat back, the foam with cover removed, and a close-up of the material that the piping was sewn to and the hog-rings attaching it.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

[John Long]

The seats for the '53 are pretty complex as they come from the factory. If this is to be an accurate restoration, you have a challenging job ahead of you.

The seat covers, as made from the factory, have a definite order of assembly. On the Chevy, of that year, they are partially installed, and then the insert is hog ringed to the foam, then the back is hog ringed, then the sides are hog ringed, and finally the bottom closed with hog rings. If I remember, when I took my front convertible seat apart there were something like 15 listing wires in it. If this is something you want to look close to factory, you will need to design your cover in a way that allows you to hog ring the insert down like the factory did but you can get a little creative about how you pull the rest of the cover on and attach it.

Watch this video. He is working on a '54 Chevy frame but does not use all the factory technics. There is a previous video also where he shows foaming the original frame.


https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/v ... =12o406nkj

In John's own training video, he did a beautiful job on the seat for the 53-54 but did not do it back as the factory did. Actually, he did not have the factory correct seat to work with either but the point is there are many ways to reach the same end result.

[53Skylark]

Awesome video, John! That certainly sheds some light on it. I just figured someone at the GM plant was looking for overtime on seat assembly day! Thanks for the response.

[John Long]

You are very welcome. When you get a chance look up the video that shows him foaming that seat. It is also interesting. If you were to see the seat I am doing you would see a lot of similarities in his and mine even though mine is pleated.

John

[John]

That pocket with the wire is called listing. It looks like in your picture there is probably steel rods embedded in to the foam of your seat that the hog ring attaches to. It is just one of the many ways manufactures add shape to the seat.
Its not that difficult. All you do is hog ring the listing in place first and then continue attaching the cover as you normally would.

John