The Upholstery Forum

May as well throw some stuff up, KTM 690 seat... reworked the foam for the customer so I had to build a new cover


Took this old stool from a friends electrica business and added my own touch

Nice work @Revv Up!
I really like the design of the KTM seat. Especially the black canvas on the side. The little details make a big difference.

@Revv Up , cool seats!

@Revv Up your a pro in my eyes. That is such good work! I have already started telling people about you that need your services!

Couple weeks ago someone wanted his headliner, door panels and sun visors done for an old Jeep pickup. Never done anything like it before... I was happy with the door panels and the headliner but not so much for the sun visors

@Revv up,

You are really hard on yourself. They looks pretty amazing to me!

@Revv Up I think you're doing great. I would like to see sunvisors being covered. I wondered how you replace the metal tips that are some of them.

These were tricky because one was apart and missing parts and they were constructed differently, who’ knows what happened over the years to the old truck. Anyways I ended up mounting the vinyl on to cork sheet because I needed something I could sew through..... the 1/8 cork was a little to thin and allowed the edges to roll a bit.

The video said to use chip board but that wasn’t available to me at the time, here’s the video I took my ideas from.


As far as those clips go.... if we are talking about the ones that cover the start and stoping points of where you sew they just pry open and are reusable. 3 out of 4 were missing from this set so I left it in the owners hands as he was on a budget and would cruise the junkyard for a full set.

RevvUp did you sew like a maniac like that Meca guy? He put a whole new meaning to speed sewing upholstery!

Thanks @Revv Up those are the ones I was speaking of. So they just crimp back on when you're finished?

Hey nice work @Revv Up! Yeah sun visors can be difficult. One tip I suggest is making sure you make the chip board cover big enough so that your feet arn't fighting agents the wood frame as your sewing. I always use chipboard because that's what I always have around for patterns and other uses. I usually buy a 50 pack at a time for like $25. But you could use anything.. Never heard of cork board though. pretty creative.

By the way. I checked out your website yesterday. Pretty cool stuff! Your the cover making master

@John The covers are my bread and butter, my winter season is defiantly my busiest. It a pretty niche market and I probably the only one out there making them.

I’m going to have to find some chipboard if I do another set of visors, I think it having a stiffer edge would solve the problem I had. The cork backing worked pretty good for the main field



@Bondo497 just happened to find one on the bench


@BigRig I am very slow on the machine but I like seeing how worn out the bed is on Mecas machine, he must have put thousands of miles of material through to wear off all the paint. Sure says something about the older machines. My brother is amazing to watch (he does boat tops for a living) one day he was over showing me the ropes on an older Juki I had bought, his first time on it he mashed the pedal down and, sewed a dead straight line and says to me... it’s kinda slow but you can probably sped it up with a pulley change. I ended up getting rid of it because it was way to fast and caused more grief than worth.

@RevvUp That is crazy!

I have a project coming your way it is a Vintage Polaris snowmobile that the people need the seat recovered. They cabin in Kookanoosa and can drop that snow machine cover off on one of their trips. Former oil company owners and will be good people for you to have as customers.

I will take a picture of the machine in the morning and send to you.

I will give them your business #.

@BigRig Cool, but why wouldn’t you do it for them?

seats, quad seats and sled seats are probably my favourite things to do. The camo seat was done in leather the customer supplied and it was THICK which made top stitching tense and difficult, if I had to do it again I would back the seam and French stitch..... anyways the customer was happy which makes me happy.


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@Revv Up Well don't laugh to hard at this ok! When I was beginning I started looking at seats on their ATVs in their yard. I have bowhunted the property for 20 years and I swiped a seat off their quad when they were away one long weekend. I used thick vinyl and a hand stapler, really was just learning. They came home to a new seat ha ha and I had started building a cover for their Polaris and told them I would recover it. They hid the Polaris from me and showed me their custom seats they had done on their golf cart my son painted in Bentley Silver for them. I really did not make a great first presentation being an Upholster. They would really like your work and I am not even a needle close to what you are doing.

I know about 15 people that head into Rev to hit the mountains in the winter.

Really Cool Camo Pattern! You can look at doing some Mossy Oak sometime, it comes in pink as well for some girls.

Hey @LeatherJohnny Check out the way Rev does his seats. This is the way I recommend doing your scooter seats. This way you can use something stronger than 4 way stretch vinyl. Also you can incorporate some cool styling in your seats this way.

@BigRig Thats really kind of you to refer people up to Rev. Soon you will be sending work to other people because your such a good trimmer that you cant handle all the work people are bringing you. You will get there I promise

BigRig wrote: ↑Fri Jun 01, 2018 4:08 am RevvUp did you sew like a maniac like that Meca guy? He put a whole new meaning to speed sewing upholstery!

Yes! Meca handles the sewing machine as if it was a part of his body!! In one of his videos I made a comment about that and he explained that he began in upholstery when he was six years old, as an apprentice Lots of years in the trade!!

John wrote: ↑Sat Jun 02, 2018 6:41 pm Hey @LeatherJohnny Check out the way Rev does his seats. This is the way I recommend doing your scooter seats. This way you can use something stronger than 4 way stretch vinyl. Also you can incorporate some cool styling in your seats

Wow! They look really, really nice! Yes, this is how I tend to do the seats, sewing the different panels together, but until now I have not had access to proper foam and the result was a little "amateurish" I will take some pictures of the original seat and the one that I made so that you can advise

I thought that using the 4 way stretch vinyl would allow some errors, given that it could be easily accommodated/stretched once properly sewn, but reading about that type of vinyl, it seems that it would not be the best option for motorcycles seats? I saw a Youtube video of sailrite where they upholstered a jetski with 4 way stretch vinyl and it looked ok, but I have not seen other uses of this vinyl in other motorcycles

@Johnny,

PM me and I will send you a chunk of this stuff. I have it sitting here because I really am not sure about its resistance and it may stretch but I think it may have some obstacles sewing as well.