The Upholstery Forum

Very helpful @John . I appreciate your guidance.

This being the third boat I've done over the years, I feel like I'm getting better at the stitching, but not really any faster (yet). I'm a few years away from retirement at the day job and considering if this might be a good line of part-time work afterwards (or not).

I guess I'd have to balance my speed and what I'd want to earn ($$$) to come up with a marketable rate. Probably price things by the job, not the hour, which I think you recommend in some other posts on the subject of pricing. As I get more time on my hands, I might try taking 1 or 2 boat upholstery jobs just to see how it works out.

As for my current project, I don't mind going slowly because I want it to look like factory quality (or better) and last a long time. (I was just a bit concerned about price vs. time if I had to do this type of work for a living). John, as you recommended, I did take the seats out of the boat all at once and was disassembling them and de-stitching the skins. But . . . I felt I was getting a little ahead of myself, seeing that there were not a lot of alignment marks in the panels. So, I decided to take things - one cushion at a time - until I get more into a rhythm.

I am using just a screw driver to pry out the staples, which works pretty well on these seats since the backing boards are HDPE and not wood. In my previous boat project, the bases were wood and I recall using a 1/4" wide chisel to get under the staples. I do have a small assortment of upholstery tools, but I am finding that regular tools work well for some things.

I find that I am still making a few mistakes along the way, and learning to hide them as best I can. On the dark gray sidewall trim pieces that I just made, I somehow came up short on material when cutting the pattern out and did not have enough material to properly close up the pointed end of the pieces. (Example below) The piece looks OK, but not great.
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So, I've ordered some 1/32" thick stainless steel to make a metal end cap that would cover the last inch (or 2) of the piece. I'm just hoping I can think ahead enough and triple-check my measuring to avoid too many mishaps. I think at the factory the upholstery people know where and how to tug and stretch the vinyl to get the right fit, but those 'secrets' are not ready apparent when making new skins. So, I'm finding that I have to make some assumptions on where the factory folks may have stretched the original fabric to make things fit right and try to replicate the process.

I am also finding that I do better if I staple the new panels together at the outer edge of the selvage so that the alignment stays true while I am stitching. This or course adds time stapling and then either removing the staples or cutting off the excess selvage after the pieces are sewn together. I have seen some people use staples on corners/curves prior to stitching, but I think I'm doing a bit of overkill so as not to loose alignment of the fabric panels.

Anyway, thanks for reading (to all those who have read this far) . . . this boat is about double of my last boat project (2 years ago) and I think it is a bit overwhelming at this point. I'll keep chipping away at it !

In other news, it looks like I will have the additional Presser Feet by today. So, I'll be able to do corners and top stitching with greater ease, rather than trying to work with an excessive amount of the fabric forced under the arm of the machine. The original pressers were fine for small pieces, not so much for the bigger stuff.

Another cushion done. Plenty more to go . . .

This cushion, and another one that is its mirror image twin make up the rear facing base of the large rear seat assembly. The stitching on these 2 skins is a bit tricky, since the skin wraps around and encloses a 2" rim/lip on the underside of the base.
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This skin did not come out quite as well as I had hoped . . . the top stitching is challenging. I can see why the OEM did not use much top-stitching, but I think it makes for a more durable piece.

The matching pair of bases are now done.
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Now onto a set of forward facing bases that are a bit simpler than these.

More progress . . .

It's been about 2 years since I did the last set of boat seats, so I'm finding it took a little bit of time to get back up to speed. (not that anything is going speedy ).

One of the complexities of these seats is what I would call '3 dimensional' meaning 3 pieces joining together, like the endcap picture below, where part of the curve is gray, then transitions to the black fabric . . . and the black and gray join at the curve of the endcap.
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Once I thought of it as '2 dimensional (endcap and the gray/black as a single piece), I had an easier job stitching it.
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Still tricky to get it to look right, particularly since I added top stitching to the side edge.

My machine also dropped a few stitches in the areas where the pieces join and the selvage bunches up considerable. So, I used @John 's method of fixing dropped stitches. Definitely takes a fair amount of time, since the dropped stitches usually occur in an area that is tough to stitch by hand.

Anyway, I got 4 seat bases done in the past 2 days. . .
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Those look fantastic! Great progress! You'll get faster with every one.

@TedP I am going to copy paste our pricing / estimating conversation to a new post because I feel its an important discussion to have separately. I respond to your question on excluding labor #s from the estimate there.

John wrote: ↑Sun Jan 23, 2022 7:41 pm Those look fantastic! Great progress! You'll get faster with every one.

Yes, it is coming along. I do find that watching NFL Playoff Football while sewing does slow things down a bit

I got the logos embroidered.

Very nice!!!

I goofed !!!

I hate it when this happens . . .
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The stitching at the curve was a bit 'iffy' to begin with and I was not able to compensate with the top-stitching (although I tried). It does not look too bad from a distance, but up close it is a sorry sight.

I'm still hit-or-miss on the curves. I think the 1/4" sew foam is making the sewing of curves and challenging areas all the more difficult. I may re-make this piece once I get to the end of the project.

The sew foam is making for a nice taut cover and gives the thread more to hang onto, but it is sure adding bulk to the fabric in places where it is not needed.

Thoughts?

Sucks when you are topstitching a finished piece and that happens, but its part of learning what works and what won't. Rounded insert corners like that are always difficult for me also. As soon as I think I've got it figured out I mess up the next one. I always trim back the sew foam in the seam allowance before I do the top stitch, this keeps the bulk to a minimum. Keep up the good work, learning from little mistakes makes you much better in the long run. Do you back the seams with anything to keep water from getting in? Or is it not really much of an issue? I've got a couple of motorcycle seats to do and am going to need to have sew foam under the material and was wondering how to keep them water resistant. I haven't done any boat work before, so I know nothing about it.

Thanks @Mikesimpson for your guidance. I do not provide any waterproofing to the seams for the boats I have done. Nor have I seen any boat manufacturers do such. The materials themselves are not prone to deterioration from water and many of the newer boats are made with the 'quick draining' urethane foam.

I suppose you could apply a bead of hot melt glue or other adhesive/sealant to the seam to get water resistance. Not sure how it would stand up to the test of time though . . .

As for the curves and the top-stiching, I am removing some of the foam from the corners where several pieces join. This has helped some, but I probably need to do more where curves are involved. Thanks for the tip!
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As luck would have it, I forgot to trim the foam on the most recent piece and then realized it as I was stitching.
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I may re-make that piece once I feel that I'm gaining success and consistency.

I was able to re-make the panel that I messed up.
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The curve shape came out better and therefore I was able to get the top stitching to come out better. I figured if I could this this far, I'll make a new skin for the seat.

In terms of progress, I'm almost done with the base pieces, then onto the backrests and helm seats.

Here is the re-make of the cushion. . . All set.
. I'm done with the bases. Next are the backrests. Some of them are similar in construction to the bases. A few are more complicated. then there are the helm seat, which are a project in themselves.

The backrests have a lot more of the gray fabric in them than the bases and I will be using the red for the center panels.

This is the first of the backrests. This one is made up of two pieces, the red being a separate piece that gets fastened in from the back.
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I am using the diamond quilt and the embroidered logos on many of the backrests.

I have the sewing of the curves figured out better, and now I am able to sew some curved pieces free-hand without stapling the panels together first. . . saves time.

The top stitching really brings out the lines of the upholstery, whereas the original seats with simple seams were sort of blah . . .

I am not doing the top-stitching as consistent as I would like, even though I have the guide feet. My stitching tends to wander 1-2 mm, which is noticeable. I am wondering if there are any tips/tricks on the top-stitching.

My pile of 'red' is accumulating.
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I am about 75% of the way through the boat seats. The Helm Seats (2 of them) appear to be the most difficult and I am saving those for last.

I am finding that the sew foam backing and the top stitching is adding a bit of time. I made the small cushion in the picture yesterday afternoon-evening. My estimation 'spreadsheet' put this at about 5.2 hours of time. It actually took me about 6.5 hours.

That's looking awesome! The red pieces really make it pop. From my experience the secret to top stitching is practice. Go slow, give it your undivided attention and keep at it. The more you do it the better they will look. But what you are doing looks great!

Looks fantastic!!! great work!

As has been suggested, I would be (and am) getting better at the sewing and have figured out sewing the curves and irregular shaped pieces much better.

I made this piece yesterday, sewing everything 'free-hand', no clips or staples to hold the panels together beforehand . . .
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A fairly complex shape for such a small piece . . . Here are the panels ready to be cut out.
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As mentioned, I was able to sew this free-hand, whereas previously, I'd be clipping or stapling the panels together.

What I've learned is to . . .

- add plenty of alignment marks and seam labeling before I take the skin apart (seam ripping).

- figure out the sequence of how the skin was originally sewn together and replicate that.

- For the sewing the curves, I am now placing the straighter/simpler panel on the bed of the machine and the more curved/irregular piece on top. In my mind I am just sewing a fairly straight line and feeding the curved piece into the path of the needle, keeping the seam allowance consistent (in my case 1/2").

- the additional alignment marks are allowing me to continually check the alignment of the panels as I am sewing and adjust accordingly.

Previously ,I was placing the more curved/irregular piece on the bed and the straighter piece on top (basically the opposite of what I am doing now), but that was a whole lot more difficult (for me) and I often caused a pucker or 2 in the curves. Now the curves are quite good by comparison.