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[53Skylark]

I've watched John's courses, and a whole bunch of other YouTube videos, in my quest to expand my leather-working horizons and learn auto upholstery so I can restore my '53 Skylark myself, but I'm throwing this question out in the General Discussion as it is all encompassing. I've been making custom leather holsters for the past 20+ years, so I'm very familiar with working with leather and industrial sewing machines in general. One thing I was taught when learning holster-making was to always avoid a blind stitch whenever possible. In all of the instructional videos I've seen on sewing piping or cording, (except the ones where some guys amazingly sew all three pieces at once at the speed of light), the piping is sewn to one piece, then the second piece is laid on top and sewn on by lining up the stitch allowance edge with no other guide or reference on the top piece. Well, going around a curve I royally screwed up my first attempt at the driver's seat-back cover, stitching into the piping even though the edges appeared lined up. (Luckily I was able to use most of those seat sections to cut out side panels for the passenger side). Anyway, I sewed the second-attempt cover by flipping things over so that I was sewing on top of the stitch line that already existed from sewing the piping onto the first piece. My theory being that I knew the piping looked good on this first piece and those stitches were where they should be, so if I used that stitch line as a guide and sewed on top of it, and kept the edges lined up everything would fall in place, and it did. The idea came to me because the screwed up piece had a single double stitched line except where I had screwed up and the two lines separated. Sooo, sorry for being long-winded in explaining this, but my question is (since I'm not seeing it taught this way in any videos), is there a good reason it should not be done this way?

[John Long]

You just haven't seen the right videos. You are doing exactly the right thing. I have seen guys sew up the piping by itself and then install it to the boxing and thirdly sew the boxing and top plate together. That will work.....but, the stitch where you sewed the piping together is now going to be out of sight and "blind" so you don't know if you are going to end up with a stitch showing or not.

By sewing the piping together at the same time as you attach it to the band (or whatever) you now have the reference stitch to go by. You can now know exactly where your seam is in relation to the piping.

A couple more thoughts. I have a hand paper stapler that is designed to staple 50 pages. It is wonderful for basting your pieces together so you don't have to try to rely on your ability to watch that seam, your alignment marks, and seam allowance all at the same time. I just sewed this back rest for my '53 Chevy. You can see where I basted (stapled) it to make sure all my alignment marks were right on.

BTW, I have also assembled the piping with the stapler so it was already together when I sewed it to the panel...Done separately but with only one seam. Nooby trick? Maybe. But I'm not proud. If it works do it.

John

[53Skylark]

Thanks again, John! I was just curious if there was a possibility of something else going wrong by doing it this way, but I'm much more comfortable sewing over the existing stitch. I have used a stapler to attach some pieces prior to sewing and it does come in handy. I guess I could just staple the piping together. I've been gluing it together to pre-assemble it. Some of the pieces on the Buick actually are stapled together. I just re-made the seat backing for the front seats. It's just vinyl stretched onto a metal skeleton frame and stapled in place to tack strips on the underside of the frame. There's a strip of piping around the entire perimeter which was also stapled in place; no stitching on this piece at all. Great looking work you're doing there, by the way!

[John Long]

Be sure you are leaving your welt foot on the machine while you are sewing it also. I just bought a 3/16 welt foot for my machine. For what I am doing, I like it better than the 1/4” foot I had been using.

You will find a lot of staples in automotive upholstery, but of course, we are talking about a different type of staple. Upholstery needs a heavy staple driven by a staple gun made for that purpose. I try to use stainless staples in the convertible.

For temporary basting, I am using an office stapler designed to shoot longer staples for up to 50 pages. They are ALWAYS removed as the seam is sewn or immediately after.

John