Upholstery question...

I recently bought a split bench seat out of a '40 Ford sedan. Naturally it needs to be completely reupholstered, which leads to my question. I was going to just take a razor knife to it this evening and strip it down to the frame, but then I thought that may be a little hasty. Would I be better off to cut the seams on all of the panels in order to take them off in one piece? Would that be an advantage to the upholstery shop when it comes time to redo the seat? Anyone?

 

The shop could use the old covers as patterns, but a decent shop shouldn't need them cause you wanna rebuild the complete seat anyway, just my two cents

 

You will save your upholstery guy a ton of time if you take the covers off without slashing them all up. Yes, a good upholstery shop can make his own patterns without the original stuff, but it just adds hours to the process. Even if you're doing it in a totally non-stock pattern, the old stuff is very useful. If it's torn up, it doesn't hurt to duct tape it back into shape so it doesn't fall apart when you take it off.

Of course, if you're buying repop factory upholstery for it (from someone like LeBaron Bonney) then you won't need any of the original stuff.

Don't cut it on the seams either. For the individual cushions, the upholstery is held to the frame with hog rings around the back. Take the seat apart, cut the hog rings and pull the upholstery off in one piece. You should not have to cut any fabric whatsoever. Mark which cushions are which, then stuff them in a plastic bag to make the trip to the upholstery shop so they can use them as patterns. The seat backs probably have the fabric glued on so you'll want to peel it off. Again, save it.

Then take your bare frame and sandblast and repaint it black, so everything is clean and nice. If there are broken springs, try to find replacements and swap them in. All this will save your upholstery shop lots of time, which means savings for you.

To bring in a bare frame and have to start from scratch to make up the upholstery is a huge job and will cost a lot more. Many, many upholstery jobs doubled in price due to the owner ripping all of the old stuff out, thinking it was not going to be used.

 

Thanks for confirming my hunch. Something just said "don't tear that up" just as I was about to have at it. Thanks again for saving me some money.

 

I grew up in an upholstery shop and all I can add to the below is...yup.

 

Why not leave the seats as is and ask the upholstery guy/gal what they would like?

 

Just put it on the bus to Austin and have Fatluckys do it. Problem solved.

 

+1

He's so dreamy.

 

If you're going to remain stock try doing it yourself. Lebaron Bonney makes a great kit. Each 40 coil spring sits in a burlap pocket . My wife made them on her sewing machine and I installed the kit. Refinish the wooden side panels with varnish. Clean , paint and lube your seat tracks. Hog rings and hog ring pliers and you're good to go. Talk to your upholsterer first before you take it apart.