The Upholstery Forum

I have started a boat cushion project. Disassembled the old, stiff, crusty cushion to use as a pattern.

It would be nice to flatten everything out for sure.

How do you do it??
Heat Gun?
Iron under a towel?
Soak in hot water?

There has to be a tried and true method out there.

Thank you in advance for your time.

Stephen
Smooooth Creations

I use a heat gun or set the pieces on the pellet stove if it’s winter, but I try to draw or trace for a pattern because the old part is usually stretched and or ripped.

Like @Revv Up said. If the material is on something that has caused it to stretch and not sit flat, you don’t want to flatten it. If you flatten it, it’ll be stretched and flat and larger than it should be. You can either pattern off the part, or lay the material on the new material and just push the very edge down and trace, leaving the center humped. Now the new piece should be close to the correct size.

If the old material is cloth you can get away with flattening better than vinyl. But still
Would try to just trace the outside edge as it sits.

Thank you...................

Old Marine Vinyl is what I am working with. Flattening out the area of the seam allowance.

Played around a little with the heat gun. I can sneak up on it without distorting the original too much.

Stephen

You can always glue or double sided tape or sew it to a piece of scrap vinyl to help hold its flat, I sometimes sew it to the thin crazy carpet kid use for snow sliding.

Double sided tape, great idea, thanks!

@Pays0n-UK ,

Shoot them some steam

Hey BigRig, thanks I’ll try that. I know steam irons work with leather but wasn’t sure about synthetic materials like auto upholstery vinyl. I guess it makes sense as long as it doesn’t get so heated up it becomes a shrinky dink! ;)

Thank you everyone!!!!

Heat gun is doing a great job.

Truly appreciate the support.

Stephen
Smooooth Creations

@Smooooth sometimes I fiND cutting off 5he seam allowance and adding my own is the best option. Usually I just put a weight in it and fold the seam over and trace it. I'll straighten it as I go if I need to

@Pays0n-UK ,

Careful steaming that leather. It can shrink it presto!

I agree with what Cody said. Dont flatten it. Its not flat because it is stretched there. If you flatten it your pattern will be off. Just lay the edges flat and leave the bubble.

@Pays0n-UK ,

Oh so very important about what John just said. Think of that bubble as a t-shirt that got stretched out and became oversized.

Thank you again everyone!!!! Opting to do what @Susy mentioned.

Cutting off the existing seam allowance and adding my own.

Stephen

@Smooooth i forget which long time upholsterer told me this, but he said he always adds his own seam allowances like mentioned. He does this cause he goes, if I pattern it and then sew my 1/2” S.A. I’m just assuming that they didn’t come back and trim a little off the S.A. After the original was sewn to get a better seam look. So now I might be sewing too far in on the pattern if I copy it exact. When I really should have added material making up for what was cut off. I hope that makes sense.

I do basically the same as @Susy , I trim off the S.A., temp tack it to the new material, trace it out and then add my S.A. back to it. Also, as @Cody said, sometimes you can't rely that the manufacturers S.A. is propper.

I just joined this forum and my question is about shrinkage of the old vinyl. It is 45+ yrs old, crackly/wrinkled and tearing. The foam is still in excellent condition. I removed the vinyl 2yrs ago and am just getting around to making the covers, however the vinyl seems to be considerably smaller than the cushion. Should I just lay the foam cushion down and trace pattern or go with new trace. Yes the vinyl had spent a summer in the Texas heat in our tool shed. Please help.

@carole.huckle ,

If it were my project I would just trace your old pattern and not mess with it, dont try to smooth out bubbles, iron it or anything else. If anything that foam has shrunk anyways and the pattern will fit just fine. Just my 2 cents.

Yeah it depends how quality of a job you want. If its just a normal recover use the old patterns if you can. If its a high end restoration I would make new patterns.

Just touching on this slightly old topic, as I am in the midst of re-upholstering some boat seats.

On a previous project, I used the old vinyl as templates for the new vinyl. The resulting covers were not quite the same shape as the original. I am assuming this was due to some distortion in the vinyl being old, dry, stiff, etc.

It seems that in some instances the old vinyl pieces make for decent templates, and in other they do not. In my current re-upholstering, I plan on re-making some of the templates from card stock paper (or maybe thick plastic sheeting), and on some pieces may use the existing vinyl as the template. The condition of the old vinyl on a piece-by-piece basis will probably be a determining factor on which I use.

I have used a steam iron buffered by a towel or pillow case in softening and flattening out brittle vinyl pieces. It is hard to say if the resulting piece i s close enough in shape to the original to get the resulting quality you are looking for in the new covers.