Ok then who here has turned their hand to reupholstering their car?
My Beetle project needed new upholstery and I wanted the upholstery to match my forthcoming paint scheme and to match the carpet set I found for it. The only ways to do this was either to pay through the nose and get someone to do it or do it myself. I chose to do it myself.
Here was my starting point a really rough pair of Recaro seats.
Next step strip them down.
In these seats the foam was good and could be reused but if it isn't you can cut an shape fresh foam easily enough with a fine tooth bread knife.
The next step was to carefully unpick the stitching so that the original panels could be used to make paper templates for the new ones.
The paper template was then pinned to a fresh roll of fabric and a new panel cut. Then some piping was pinned in place.
Next step is to get your needle and thread out and tack stitch the panels together by hand. If you don't do this getting a neat seam with the sewing machine is near impossible!
After machine stitching I trial fitted some of my new bits.
After making up all my new panels I now have a new seat. The harder you can pull the fabric the better it will look. Here are my finished front seats. After a few days, and once over with upholstery cleaner the visible creases disappeared
Now that those are done I need a rear bench that goes with them. For this I didn't have anything to use as a template so had to start from scratch. The first step was taking lots of measurements of the frame and making a design on paper. After finishing my design I cut and stitched this lot up.
After finishing the top cover I just need to close in the front, back and sides.
Front done.
That's as far as I have got so far. Now I need to decide whether to quilt the seat panels or not.
My Beetle project needed new upholstery and I wanted the upholstery to match my forthcoming paint scheme and to match the carpet set I found for it. The only ways to do this was either to pay through the nose and get someone to do it or do it myself. I chose to do it myself.
Here was my starting point a really rough pair of Recaro seats.
Next step strip them down.
In these seats the foam was good and could be reused but if it isn't you can cut an shape fresh foam easily enough with a fine tooth bread knife.
The next step was to carefully unpick the stitching so that the original panels could be used to make paper templates for the new ones.
The paper template was then pinned to a fresh roll of fabric and a new panel cut. Then some piping was pinned in place.
Next step is to get your needle and thread out and tack stitch the panels together by hand. If you don't do this getting a neat seam with the sewing machine is near impossible!
After machine stitching I trial fitted some of my new bits.
After making up all my new panels I now have a new seat. The harder you can pull the fabric the better it will look. Here are my finished front seats. After a few days, and once over with upholstery cleaner the visible creases disappeared
Now that those are done I need a rear bench that goes with them. For this I didn't have anything to use as a template so had to start from scratch. The first step was taking lots of measurements of the frame and making a design on paper. After finishing my design I cut and stitched this lot up.
After finishing the top cover I just need to close in the front, back and sides.
Front done.
That's as far as I have got so far. Now I need to decide whether to quilt the seat panels or not.