The Upholstery Forum

Hi.

I have modified some quick release bus seats to go in the back of my landrover.
I now need to make some new covers to smarten them up.

Sadly I can’t get hold of the right fabric to match the front seats (MGF fabric), so I’ll have to do something nice in a diffrent way. I have some vinyl leatherette coming for the boxings and back and some grey foam backed alcantara.

How would you recover these?
Would you split up the plates and have separate materials for the inserts and the collars? Do you thing there is enough definition in the foams to allow that? What would look good. This’ll be my tirst full seat!

Thanks.

You can probably see the shape of the seat better in this picture. Thanks.

Hi @Yalan-UK! Welcome to the forum!!

Personally I think it would look best to match the style of the front seats. Can you post pictures of your existing front seats?
Youll be able to do pretty much anything you want with theses seats. If you even glue on more foam and shape it if you want more bolster.

Thanks for the reply John.
Front seats are half leather from an MGF - but the fabric is no longer available and even if I salvage from used seats the liklihood is it’ll be worn & baggy. So I have some charcoal alcantara and I’m tempted to buy a proper leather hide and do this properly. I can’t match the fronts but I could take styling cues.

I want to keep these fairly flat without bolsters because I may be putting child boosters on them.

Front seats...


And the rear seats with a couple of ideas - red representing leather & the blue outlines being the alcantara.


A, B or other? Worth spending $100 on a decent leather (bearing in mind the alcantara is genuine) and there are already alot of hours gone in?

Oh, and are those horrible rubbery headrests able to be dyed from blue to black? Product?

Watching the 13.Design Layout video now and wondering about pleating the Alcantara inserts.
Leaning towards design B now and have bought some leather now too.

Decision - veryical or horizontal pleats - do either reduce the risk of fabric going baggy?
They might match the fronts better if left unpleated but hey, it is mostly just a practice project..

Horizontal would match the front seats better

I think any of your designs will look nice but I like B option best because it matches the design of the front seats better.
Alcantera would be a nice option.

For the rubber headrests you recolor them easiley with SEM color coat or classic coat. https://www.albrightssupply.com/sem-pai ... Click=3957
Do a search on the form there are a few discussions on here on how to use it. The other option would be to hand stitch a cover around them. Thats a lot of work.

As for pleats prevent material getting baggy I had never considered that but I suppose it probably would help prevent it.

Well it’s not terrible but it could certainly be better. But I’m not sure really how to fix the problems. Troubles seem to stem from the curves once the sides join the face. Really fiddly & when stopping mid stitch to realign the work, things move if I forget to drop the needle. The. We have a kink in the stitch!






Any suggestions or just keep practicing?!

Curves are hard and it takes some practice. The covers look pretty darn good for your first time!

I recommend steaming your cover while installing it. This will help a lot to relax the cover and fit better.
I would also glue the cover down in the area of the seat where it transition to the bolsters.

Hope this helps

Well I finished these off last night and threw them in the Landy last night. Theyre not perfect but I’m so happy with them as it is the first time the whole family have been able to go out in the vehicle together!

I wouldn’t have had the confidence to do this without John’s great videos so really, huge thanks for all your online content!

Seats are quick release onto chassis mounted floor rails and can be mounted either forward or reaf facing.
Just need to get the SEM paint onto the headrests!

@John would a layer of 1/4 headliner foam help in this situation?

Nice work, that stoping without the needle down is a good argument for a sync motor with a position sensor (stops needle down every time)

@Revv Up It looks like there already is 1/4 foam on the cover.

Nice job @Yalan-UK! Happy to hear the videos were so helpful.

Thank you both for your kind words.
I have only used 1/4 scrim foam on the alcantara inserts. All the leather parts are bare.
I have enough material to try again and may do the seat bases again taking out a few mm on the plate bolsters.

Maybe a 1/2” of foam on the bolstrs would help and save a bit of rework time though!
I’d rather not glue the covers down though as the integral belts might need maintenance.

I would probably use 1/4 scrim on the top and sides. That will help smooth things out. You could use 1/2 inch scrim on the top but it might be too puffy for the style you are going for.