The Upholstery Forum

John,
I will be following this post closely as I will be undertaking the same project on my 1953 Buick Skylark. Nice job so far! (Especially for someone with no prior experience). Lucky for me, I've got 20+ years experience on industrial sewing machines. I have my own business making custom leather holsters and accessories. So hopefully this will just be expanding my horizons.

My armrests are going to be my biggest issue as they are not removable, so I am not starting there. They are part of the door panel, and the entire lower half of the door panel vinyl sweeps up and covers them in one continuous piece.

I've disassembled the front and rear seat cushions down to the frames. There is some surface rust on the frames, but in good condition otherwise. There were some minor differences in how the front and rear seats were built up. There was an extra layer of 1/2 inch foam and a layer of muslin on the front seat. The layer of foam on top of the cotton batting on the front seat was so dry and crumbly that all I could do was roll it all up with the cotton batting to avoid making a huge mess. The foam basically turned to dust if you tried to peel it off. The foam on the rear seat wasn't as bad, but still very dry.

I think I've decided how I'm going to build up the seats. I'm going to use a layer of burlap then a layer of jute to go over the springs. I'll stack two inches of foam on top of that. I'll use one inch of firm and then one inch of medium foam for the cushions. Then a layer of polyester batting and covered by muslin. The cover will go over the top of all of that. I hope I'm not trying to squeeze too much in there. I'm going to use 1/4 inch scrim foam on the cushion boxing.

I have most of my materials but still waiting on a couple of things before I can really get going. This weekend I'll be cutting apart the old covers and using them as templates for the new materials. I'm also going to finish cleaning up the frames. I'm not doing much with those. I'll clean up and paint what will be visible.

Eastwood Company makes a product called Rust Encapsulator for spraying onto rusted parts such as seat springs to prevent the rust from spreading. I just ordered some for my seat springs.

Awesome job so far!! Thanks for sharing the progress.

I would recommend going with you method 2 for the seats. I really dont recommend using burlap unless you trying to stay 100% oem. Burlap breaks down quickly and makes a mess under the seat that you have to constantly vacuum up. The batting inst needed either, foam is much better.

I've finished the rear seat cushion. I finally received all of the materials I needed to build up the seats and finished agonizing over how I was going to do it. My biggest fear was how the amount of material under the cover was going to affect the fit. Other factors I thought about were how much had the old cover stretched over time and how much did the old cushion material compress. I had already cut the material out using the old cover as a template, so I decided to quit thinking about it and do it. I used a layer of vinyl and jute over the springs and then two inches of foam over the top of that. I did round the corner of the foam before I put the cover on. I used scrim foam on the boxing and sewed the pockets around the base for the listing wire. I can be my own worst critic, but I'm happy overall with how it turned out. The corners aren't the greatest and I wish I would have given myself a little extra length to hog ring it all down. The cushion is definitely thicker than original and I had compensated some for the additional material, but not enough. Or, at least enough to hog ring it where it was originally. I made it work. Lessons learned for the front seat cushion which is next.

That looks fantastic! Nice job. Do you have a steamer yet? Steam will help you a lot with some of those small wrinkles and get those corners to relax and lay down smoother.

@John, that’s one of the items still on my wish list. I’ll probably pick one up soon.

This is the one I use.
Jiffy J-4000 Steamer https://amzn.to/2GKa8X0

Sometime you can find them used on Craigs List for cheep

what machine are you using? I am thinking of trying this out for my 3 cars. your work looks amazing for a beginner...definitely following

@Joeytattoo, Thank you! I definitely wish I had more time to practice and work on some of the finer details. I'm trying to take my time, but it can be a little frustrating at times. I'm trying to stay on a schedule so I can drive the car this summer. I'm using a Sailrite Ultrafeed LS-1. I don't have a specific reason for using this brand of machine. I didn't think that your average home Singer would be up to the task and I'm not going into business for myself so didn't need to break the bank on a high end machine. When I started researching doing this on my own, that was just the one I settled for. I also think everything was pointing my to a walking foot machine. Maybe I bought too much machine for what I'm doing. I can't complain much, but I don't have any experience to compare it with. My only complaint so far would be that it can be a little difficult to control the motor at times. If I recall correctly, a servo motor may improve that control but I can't say for sure. If I knew I was going to be doing more of this type of work, I would have probably invested in one. The only other thing I can think of was when I was sewing the boxing on one of the seat covers, I had some difficulty rolling up the material to fit under the arm (I hope that's the correct term) of the machine. I can't really complain about that since that is the machine I bought, but maybe something to consider.

I started out with a Walker Mini-Brute which I think is the similar version of that machine. It did quite well but it is walking foot machines but not needle feed. That can limit you to how much sew foam you can sew or other things that make the job extra thick. It will sew 6-7 layers of vinyl though..

BTW, I still have the Walker and priced it to a friend the other day. It is probably a little heavy to ship cheaply but I would guess $200 would buy it and get it shipped.

John

I've finished the front seat cushion and the rear seat back. I wouldn't say it's getting easier, but I'm starting to get a clue as to what I think I should be doing. When I choose to mimic the original design and use the existing upholstery as a template, I foolishly assumed that everything fit correctly to begin with. What I'm realizing is that it probably never did fit right. I'm copying patterns when they should be tweaked just a little bit here and there. Looking back at the photos of the original stuff, I can see the same things I'm seeing now on the finished product. I was worried that the foam buildup was too much and stretching the material excessively. I think if I had it to do over again, I would probably have come up with a new design and start from scratch. I thought it would be easier this way, but maybe not. Since this is my first interior, I wouldn't know how hard starting from scratch would be. I'm making it work and still very happy with the results. Here are a few pictures to show some progress. Now, it's time to finish the front seat backs.

Looks great! Yeah thats always the dilemma of reusing patterns or creating you own...

It’s been an eternity since my last post and the summer is gone. My next piece after my last post was to recover the front seat backs. I had used the existing material as a template and made new covers but they didn’t fit right. After that, I decided to take a break from upholstery and work on other car projects. The car is going back together now and getting very close to driving and I need to finish the seats. I briefly thought about just covering them with a blanket until I had more time, but I just couldn’t make myself do it. On Sunday I started measuring and cutting material to recover them. I spent a lot of time looking over where I went wrong and measuring the seat backs to get it right this time. I cut out material and started sewing it together yesterday. I didn’t have time to finish, but hopefully tonight or tomorrow I should be done. So far, it seems to be looking like a much better fit than before. I’ll post pics when finished. Here is a preview of what I have so far.

Quick update after I finished recovering the front seat backs. They definitely fit much better than my first attempt. The last thing I need to do is a headliner but that’s going to wait until next spring. I’m going to try a get a few miles on the car before the snow flies. Thanks to everyone that followed along and gave advice and encouragement. I can appreciate the skill it takes for upholstery work and I’m glad that I did it myself and learned something new. I still have a lot to learn, but wouldn’t be scared of doing it again.

@53 Vick , that is incredible! is this really your first shot at upholstery or are you pulling my leg? I can't stop looking at the pics!

Thank you and yes this was my first attempt at upholstery. I promise I’m not pulling your leg. It wasn’t easy and I did some practice before getting going. I watched a lot of YouTube videos and most of the Lucky Needle’s training videos. I tried to keep it as simple as possible due to my inexperience. I did have to make the front seat back covers twice. The first attempt was horrible but I think I know where I went wrong. I still have to make the headliner but will wait until early Spring to do that. I think I would like to make the carpet also. I’m not real happy with how this one fits. That will also be a project for later. Thanks again!

Thats awesome! It looks so good. Congratulations. Thanks for sharing your progress and pictures.

It's time to finish a few things that I didn't get to last summer or fall. The headliner and sun visors are at the top of the list. I do have the old headliner and it's in pretty rough shape. The material is extremely delicate from age and easy to tear. I have all of the bows and was able to figure out the order they go in. I'm very hesitant to use the old headliner as a template considering the difficulties I had with the seats so I'll take measurements to use as a reference then install the bows in the car and verify. Once the weather warms up a little more, I will remove the seats from the car to give myself some room and keep from damaging the seats.

I watched the video on the sun visors and they don't look like they will be too difficult. I ordered some chipboard and will have to experiment some to sew through all the layers to make sure it looks good.

Another item on my list is the handle/straps on the back of the front seats. I'm not sure what it's called but don't really have any ideas what I'm going to do with it. The old one is a chain in the center of what was probably at one time a soft tube wrapped in green vinyl/fabric. I'm not sure what alternative solutions are out there but will be doing some research on it. Any tips or advice would be appreciated.

I also want to build a small console to go around the shifter with 2 cup holders and maybe a small tray for holding stuff. I was thinking of building out of wood and wrapping in vinyl. I haven't thought too much about that yet.

I'm not real happy with how the carpet sits on the floor and may be making my own. We'll see how the other items go before driving season is here in Wisconsin. If I have time, then I might tackle that.

Something I'll work on over the summer is carpet in the trunk with a spare tire cover. I'll mess with that as time allows and in between road trips.

Be careful with your headliner. The original headliners were designed to be steamed when installed and would shrink into shape, pulling out the wrinkles.

Years ago, I removed a headliner from a '49 Merc to use as a pattern. I did use it but had stored it for months and when I went to install the new headliner, it was way too small. The original one I used had shrunk while in storage making the new one so undersized it was unusable.

Since then, I have always made new patterns from scratch.

John