Just finished a truck seat for a guy at work. Pictures included.

[hdflame]

I've been busy making mostly motorcycle gear and doing leatherwork lately.  Just looking at some posts and thought I'd share a seat I just finished.  This is only the third truck seat I've done.  Nothing fancy, but he likes it better than sitting in a hole!

[Darren Henry]

Awesome job Bobby!!!that can't be your third one.

it's a bit embarrassing though that some one doing this part-time has a Bosch foam saw with the long blades and I after 18 + years have to use my own electric knife because my boss is too cheap and too hick. The only thing in the shop when i got here was a broken band saw and a butcher knife that I am sure he only used to open canned beans in the bush.LOL.

Kudos on the foam surgery. I do those a little differently: Instead of having to glue and align three square edges like that I just cut out a "swoop" , the way you would take a bruise off an apple. That way I only have one edge to worry about. Because it's on a curve; I over bend the implant and work from the centre out. I find it faster and my reference points are closer together when I go "sculpt" the implant.

[baileyuph]

Nothing wrong with that job Bobby, like Darren said, your foam repair worked out well.

Repairing the foam is always time consuming for me plus can be a challenge finding repair materials in the proper density.  I have a small grinder that is effective in smoothing when that needs to be done. I usually fill the least amount required, out of necessity. 

You didn't comment that you did or just lucked out with the wire platform.  A usually have to replace and sometimes replace broken spring retiners.  That type of repair can slow me down.

From observations of the lines in the seat, looks like you probably had to cut the vinyl with the stretch running in the direction of the pleats, because the faces look to be one piece.  By the way on that GM seat did you glue to install the cover to the contoured backrest?  I work on so many different seats, don't remember if GM used tabs hooked with hog rings or velcro originally.  If it is hog ringed in then the tab stitching would have shown where the tab is connected, can't see it there assmed you glued.

That seat is from the 90's isn't it?  That original material was all fleece backed vinyl, not leather/vinyl combo.  Actually they didn't hold up real long but for a whle, if my memory is good.

I noticed you elected to go with welted seams instead of he original french seams and didn't put carpet on trailing edge of the cushion, as done originally.

Where did you get the long foam saw blade?  I don't know, but it would be nice If I could get one for my Bosh.

Yes, those head rest can be a pain.

How many hours do you think there were in the project?  About a day and a half? More if the spring base was trashed.  The job you did is relatively time consuming.

It is obvious you are having fun, be interested in seeing some of your leather work.

I would think the guy will have you replace the headliner and redo the visors, next.

Satisfying results I am sure for you, Nice work.

Doye

 

[hdflame]

Thanks to both of you for the comments.  I'm going to try to address everything in one post.

Don't feel too bad about not having the Bosch foam saw.  I watched eBay until I found a good buy on a used one.  It came with 2" blades...almost useless!  I don't remember where I got the 12" blades from.  I think I just did a search online until I found the best deal.  I also had to replace the foot plate on it.  Some of the little rollers were missing and I couldn't find the rollers, so I just got a new foot plate.

Hadn't thought about using the "SWOOP" method of foam replacement!  :)  I'll try that next time.

The springs were in excellent shape.  I was surprised on a seat that old.  His truck has about 250,000 miles on it and it's just an old work truck for plumbing.  I definitely won't be replacing his headliner or carpet or anything else very soon.  I think his truck is actually dirtier than mine.

I also have a couple of different sanders I can use on smoothing the foam.  I use them on motorcycle seats.  On this seat, I actually didn't sand it any more than what you see in the picture.  I used a 1/2" of sew foam under it so I really didn't need to.

For the seat back, I used Velcro.  That's what was on the original.  If you look at this picture, you can see where they made a horizontal stitch line down the middle of each piece of Velcro.  I really didn't like the look of that stitch line so I just used the vertical stitch lines to hold it in place which worked just fine.

The original with the horizontal stitch line:


Mine, without:


One thing I usually do is put a piece of heavy truck tonneau vinyl between the spring and the foam to prevent the springs from cutting into the foam.  I realized I didn't do it after I had the cover on and hog ringed in place.  Oh well, it was in really good shape anyway.

Chris was trying to keep cost down so he didn't really care that I didn't use carpet like the original.  Don't really know the purpose of using the carpet anyway?  Since I didn't have any, I didn't spend the extra money to order it.

French seams versus welt.  To me, welt is SO MUCH easier, so again, in order to cut time and cost I went with the welt cord.  Personally, on a work truck I'd just as soon have welt.  :)

This vinyl was pretty stretchy, so I didn't really worry about which way I cut it.  It was just a little too narrow to cut it across, so I cut it up the roll.  As far as the seams, I really like to make them more like roll and pleats and sew that extra seam from the back, but that would have taken more time.  I probably had about a day and a half to two days in it total.  It always takes me a little longer because I have to factor in work days at the fire station and taking care of my son when he's out of school.

That was the first set of head rests I've done.  I watched a couple of YouTube videos to get some ideas on fastening it on the bottom side.  I wound up cutting some stiffening card board to put on the bottom to staple to.  That worked really good.







I think I hit everything.  Thanks again for the compliments and suggestions.

[hdflame]

Oh, I forgot to show you a couple of leather pieces!  Here ya go.

First gun holster.  This is for my 40 Springfield XD Subcompact.  The first 2 are wet forming.









First knife sheaths.



This is Python inlay.



This is for a Gerber Multi Tool.








This is a radio strap and holder I made.

[hdflame]

While looking for some leather pictures, I ran across some pictures of my first boat seat.





Some leather trim on canvas.





Ax head cover.





Enough for tonight!  Later.

[Mojo]

Great job Bobby. The holsters came out real nice. I like them. :)

Chris